..but maybe when you mess with the bull you get the horns, or some dumb stuff like that. I have a hard time being on the side of someone who does something that’s not even all that honorable or whatever making choices that piss off of the big bad boss and now they’re on the run.
This novel is more or less just a novella, especially given that most of Jo Nesbo’s novels are 500 pages. It feels thin, and almost, and this wouldn’t surprise, a further chance for Jo Nesbo to make some cash on movie rights. It’s slim, the characterization relies way to heavy on stereotypes and tropes and the end result is something beyond nothing new…..as in underwhelming, in an overwhelming way.
The novel…is fine. But it doesn’t amount to much. The premise is that this “fixer” had actually been mistaken and was really a low rent drug dealer who got conscripted for a job he has no real business doing. So when he runs away with a bunch of the big boss’s cash, and a job not done, he makes his way north to small town where a small ethnic group and devout religious fundamentalists live. Like most fish out of water stories, he gets himself enmeshed with the local recent widow.
In a lot of ways, it’s just a remix of We’re no Angels. But there’s not much in the way of comedy, and it’s not ever entirely clear there’s much danger. And, what’s worse is that the poor decision making of the lead character very very selfishly gets a mother and child mixed in, but he’s never actually held account for it.
The most interesting part of the novel is that the audiobook was read by Kim Gordon, of Sonic Youth, continuing off the first book being read by Patti Smith. I guess the next one will be read by Carrie Brownstein or Liz Phair.
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