The Redbreast: A Harry Hole Novel – A Glass Key Award-Winning Nordic Crime Thriller of Murder and Betrayal (Harry Hole Series, 3)

By Jo Nesbo

Don’t Miss the Netflix series Detective Hole, based on Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, premiering March 26, 2026!

“An elegant and complex thriller. . . . Harrowingly beautiful.” —New York Times Book Review

“Hugely impressive—ambitious in scope, and skilled in execution.” —Los Angeles Times

“Ranks with the best of current American crime fiction.”Washington Post

Jo Nesbø, the New York Times bestselling author of The Snowman, has solidified his spot as one of the most exciting Scandinavian thriller writers in the crime fiction business. The Redbreast is the third installment in Nesbø’s tough-as-nails series featuring Oslo police detective Harry Hole.

Detective Harry Hole embarrassed the force, and for his sins he's been reassigned to mundane surveillance tasks. But while monitoring neo-Nazi activities in Oslo, Hole is inadvertently drawn into a mystery with deep roots in Norway's dark past—when members of the nation's government willingly collaborated with Nazi Germany.

More than sixty years later, this black mark won't wash away, and disgraced old soldiers who once survived a brutal Russian winter are being murdered, one by one. Now, with only a stained and guilty conscience to guide him, an angry, alcoholic, error-prone policeman must make his way safely past the traps and mirrors of a twisted criminal mind. For a hideous conspiracy is rapidly taking shape around Hole—and Norway's darkest hour may still be to come.

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Published Dec 23, 2008

544 pages

Average rating: 7.5

8 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

margardenlady
Dec 27, 2023
4/10 stars
Um, well I finished. I think it was the translation, but this was a slog for a really long time. I still am frustrated that all the strings of story didn't get resolved. Why did Ellen have to die? Lots of characters introduced at the beginning - more than was easy to balance in one's head. Many of the story lines did resolve, finally. Until my Norwegian is good enough to read Nesbø in his language, I'll pass.

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