Nicole Elphick
Some countries just have a lock on certain genres. South America has magical realism. Australia for obvious reasons excels at the rural saga. And almost inarguably Scandinavia has become home to the best in dark and edgy crime. Nordic noir, as it is known, has popped up on television sets withThe Killing, Borgen and The Bridge and on bookshelves with Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell and Karin Fossum.
One of the current leading lights in Scandinavian crime fiction is the ridiculously talented Norwegian author Jo Nesbo. The writer had already achieved success as a footballer, stockbroker and even rock star (he still remains the frontman of Norwegian bandDi Derre) before he turned his hand to crime writing in the late nineties. Nesbo found massive success with his bestselling Harry Hole detective series and has now had his work translated into more than 40 languages. He’s also managed the difficult feat of balancing commercial popularity with critical respect and was recently tapped to join literary luminaries including Margaret Atwood and Jeanette Winterson to rewrite no less than Shakespeare (he’s working on a crime noir version of Macbeth).
His newly released standalone thriller The Son has been receiving a phenomenal amount of buzz and with good reason. The film rights have already been sold and Channing Tatum is rumoured to be attached to the cinematic project.
The Son chronicles the pitch-black story of Sonny Lofthus, a 30-year-old man who has been imprisoned since he was 18 for crimes he didn’t commit. In the corrupt Oslo jail system, the drug addicted Sonny is happy to take the rap so long as his captors keep him provided with a steady stream of heroin. But when Sonny finds out that his father, a policeman who he had believed committed suicide over his own dirty dealings, may have been innocent, Sonny plans a daring escape to find out the truth and avenge his father. On Sonny’s trail is Simon Kefas, a hardboiled detective battling his own demons, and Kari Adel, a newbie recruit to the homicide squad who sees the job as a mere pit stop on the way to her larger career ambitions.
It’s easy to see why Nesbo’s work has been such a global success with his clear gift for hairpin twists and turns. While clocking in at almost 500 pages, the thriller is so tightly plotted that it will keep readers steadfastly glued to their seat. (In other words, don’t start reading it during a busy weekend, or you may find yourself cancelling plans left, right and centre in the pursuit of ‘just one more chapter’.) What Nesbo has crafted is not a whodunnit in the traditional sense, as the writer is interested in the far more fascinating question of what can drive a person to evil? Sonny is an absorbing character, equally capable of supreme gentleness as brutal violence.
The deftly written book is kept briskly paged by Nesbo’s punchy writing style and spot-on ear for dialogue. The book also touches on surprisingly complex themes, with a detour into the increasing gentrification of Oslo and how that affects the working class families who have resided there for generations. The issue is subtly woven in, with Nesbo makes the wise decision to show rather than tell ensuring the book doesn’t tip over into didacticism.
The Son remains true to the spirit of Nordic noir, which is to never lay out a world drawn only in black and white, instead to more accurately paint with shades of grey. Almost every character in the book is hiding their own dark and desperate motivations. The novel is for fans of smart, sophisticated and multilayered crime, who don’t mind sinking themselves into the gritty Norwegian underworld where bigwig crime bosses treat life with shockingly casual disdain. Scandinavian crime is famed for its particularly bleak view of human nature and in The Son Nesbo doesn’t disappoint in his razor-sharp dissection of how far greed can push some.
The Son (32.99, Random House) is now available for sale.
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