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Nemesis
(Harry Hole #4)
by
“Nesbø’s storytelling abilities are incomparable. Nemesis is crime novel as art form and great entertainment.”
—USA Today
The #1 international bestseller from one of the most celebrated crime writers in Europe--the New York Times bestselling author of The Snowman--Jo Nesbø’s extraordinary thriller Nemesis features Norwegian homicide detective Harry Hole, “the next in the lon
...moreGet A Copy
Kindle Edition, 482 pages
Published
January 9th 2009
by HarperCollins e-books
(first published 2002)
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Start your review of Nemesis (Harry Hole, #4)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
The Good.
Jo Nesbo’s surly and reclusive Norwegian detective Harry Hole (pronounced Hooleh) is back in 2002’s Nemesis. Nesbo established Hole in The Bat and Cockroaches and then produced a phenomenal novel with his 2000 novel The Redbreast – one the genre’s best, akin to Stieg Larsson in narrative quality. Hole is engaged to investigate a bank robbery that went wrong, resulting in the death of a bank teller. A wider network of evil is uncovered and Hole is heavily ...more
The Good.
Jo Nesbo’s surly and reclusive Norwegian detective Harry Hole (pronounced Hooleh) is back in 2002’s Nemesis. Nesbo established Hole in The Bat and Cockroaches and then produced a phenomenal novel with his 2000 novel The Redbreast – one the genre’s best, akin to Stieg Larsson in narrative quality. Hole is engaged to investigate a bank robbery that went wrong, resulting in the death of a bank teller. A wider network of evil is uncovered and Hole is heavily ...more

Yet another series I keep pushing through, hoping it will get better because I have heard so many good things. This one fell completely flat. The story was disjointed. I didn't understand the relationships between the characters. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on or why. I understood the resolution, but I don't think I cared anymore. I spent the last 200 pages or so on autopilot feeling like it ended about 20 times but at the same time feeling like it was never going to end.
I wil ...more
I wil ...more

Sometimes I feel as though I’m genetically hardwired to be a contrarian. Not because I actually like being different than everyone else or going against popular opinion, nor do I actually want to stand on the mountaintop and scream “All you fuckers are wrong.” Because let’s face it, it’s easy to follow everyone else, to march in line and in step, even if it sometimes means you’re headed for a cliff or the occasional mountain lion. Nor do I get some sort of sick, demented pleasure from bashing ot
...more

Upon completing this book, I rated it three stars. After a month's time and much thought, I cannot say that I really liked it all that much. I've decided to drop my rating to two stars, and here's why:
I was nowhere near as impressed with Nemesis as I was Harry Hole's previous outing, The Redbreast. This one was nothing more than your average detective/bank heist story. The emotional impact of the tale did not match the previous installment either. But I think I mostly didn't care for this story ...more
I was nowhere near as impressed with Nemesis as I was Harry Hole's previous outing, The Redbreast. This one was nothing more than your average detective/bank heist story. The emotional impact of the tale did not match the previous installment either. But I think I mostly didn't care for this story ...more

This is a big, thick chunky book but I raced through it. On the cover Jo Nesbø is likened to Stieg Larsson but he is nothing like. Nesbø wastes not a single word in description or lengthy explanation. He just tells a great story with plenty of action and lots of great police work. I really enjoy Harry Hole as a character. He may be flawed but he must be nice because all the best people like him and the bad ones do not. And although he makes plenty of mistakes - he has to otherwise there would no
...more

In this 4th book in the 'Harry Hole' series, the detective gets involved in dual investigations. The book can be read as a standalone.
*****

Inspector Harry Hole of the Oslo police is an alcoholic who's trying to stay on the wagon. That's hard for the detective, who tends to follow his own rules and infuriates his bosses. In this book Harry gets involved with two investigations: a bank heist that left a female employee dead; and the alleged suicide of a young woman.
To investigate the bank robbery ...more

I'm four books into Nesbø's popular Harry Hole series and even though I've liked all of them so far, they haven't quite wowed me as much as I'd hoped.
One thing that I really do like about this series is Hole himself, the flawed protagonist with his demons with alcohol is very much the focus of these stories.
The fact that he wakes up with no recollection from the previous evening's dinner with an old flame instantly makes his colleges think his been drinking again.
When her body is found in myster ...more
One thing that I really do like about this series is Hole himself, the flawed protagonist with his demons with alcohol is very much the focus of these stories.
The fact that he wakes up with no recollection from the previous evening's dinner with an old flame instantly makes his colleges think his been drinking again.
When her body is found in myster ...more

Nesbø continues to dazzle with his wonderful Harry Hole series, in this fourth novel. When a single individual enters a bank and takes the female teller hostage, demands are made to empty an ATM full of money. Using the hostage to disguise their voice, the robber offer an ultimatum that cannot be completed in the specified time, and the teller is killed. With the Robbery Division unable to make any progress on the case, it is sent to Harry Hole and video evidence expert, Beate Lønn as a murder i
...more

Nemesis is the fourth instalment of Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole detective series and I must say this series keeps getting better. In Nemesis, Harry is working to clear his name when one of his previous girlfriends is found dead, while also working in a parallel storyline on a series of bank robberies/murders.
I do find that I have to keep my wits about me while reading Nesbo's books, often needing to thumb back a few chapters to reread bits and pieces that may have seemed insignificant at the time. It ...more
I do find that I have to keep my wits about me while reading Nesbo's books, often needing to thumb back a few chapters to reread bits and pieces that may have seemed insignificant at the time. It ...more

This is indeed one of the more complex books Jo Nesbo has written about his anti-hero Harry Hole. But it is still a great read and for people that do like serious and original police-novels or thrillers this a must-read book.
Harry Hole is revisited by an old girlfriend from his more addictive years and somehow she ends up dead and Harry is the most obvious perpetrator.
A bank gets robbed and a women working in the bank gets killed in cold blood for no obvious reason but the manager was too slow i ...more
Harry Hole is revisited by an old girlfriend from his more addictive years and somehow she ends up dead and Harry is the most obvious perpetrator.
A bank gets robbed and a women working in the bank gets killed in cold blood for no obvious reason but the manager was too slow i ...more

Aug 21, 2020
Dave Schaafsma
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
mystery-detective-thriller,
nordic-noir
Nemesis, the fourth in the Harry Hole series (and finally pronounced correctly [close to “hoo-leh] for the first time in the audiotaped versions of these books I am listening to), has a lot going on. I think too much, really, which is not to say it isn’t created by a talented writer. By the third book, The Redbreast, the best one so far, he began to really prove himself, with rich novelistic themes and multiple threads and real political and historical stakes. And this one has multiple threads,
...more

There really should be a health warning or spoiler alert printed on the cover of this book. It is the third of Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole series of detective novels to be translated into English. The first was The Devil's Star, but actually The Devil's Star turns out to be the third in the series and very much the sequel to Nemesis. For some reason, the novels have been translated and published in the UK out of sequence (I guess the reason is they published the best one first to test the water . . .)
...more

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.

I just couldn't get into this one. I don't think blackout alcoholics could be very good detectives. They couldn't catch a cold, let alone a master criminal. The plot line in this story gets so complicated as to become downright silly. I think I'll lay off Nesbo for a while.
...more

Nemesis is a complex psychological thriller that weaves together the strands of two different investigations that prove to be interrelated.
When a teller is shot and killed in a dramatic bank robbery, Oslo homicide detective Harry Hole is assigned to the team investigating the crime. But Harry, a recovering alcoholic with a ton of other issues, does not work well with others and soon finds himself investigating apart from the larger team, assisted only by a young detective and video analyst, Bea ...more
When a teller is shot and killed in a dramatic bank robbery, Oslo homicide detective Harry Hole is assigned to the team investigating the crime. But Harry, a recovering alcoholic with a ton of other issues, does not work well with others and soon finds himself investigating apart from the larger team, assisted only by a young detective and video analyst, Bea ...more

Sep 22, 2017
Amanda NEVER MANDY
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2017,
harry-hole-and-friends
Harry makes a new friend and gets one step closer to solving the crime that matters most to him.
I really enjoyed the mystery on this one, how it split off into multiple different little mysteries and then how they all came back together in the end. I was actually quite clueless until the very last moment regarding the whodunit portion of the story. I thought I had it all sorted out but was pleasantly surprised when I realized I was wrong. *GASP* Yes, I totally did just admit to being wrong a ...more
I really enjoyed the mystery on this one, how it split off into multiple different little mysteries and then how they all came back together in the end. I was actually quite clueless until the very last moment regarding the whodunit portion of the story. I thought I had it all sorted out but was pleasantly surprised when I realized I was wrong. *GASP* Yes, I totally did just admit to being wrong a ...more

Dec 18, 2013
Steven Godin
rated it
liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
scandinavia-iceland
My first foray into Scandinavia crime noir, which seems in the last 10 years to have come out of nowhere to take the world by storm, TV as well. Nemesis is a decent read, not as dark as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but not as good either. In Harry Hole there is a detective you believe in, he has flaws like everybody else, there are moments of tension, and a good developing plot/story, where footage of a bank robbery has been looked at hundreds of times and the police searched for finger prin
...more

Jo Nesbo keeps getting better and better!
This book is the fourth in the Harry Hole series and the second in what is called The Oslo Trilogy. The story is complex and multi-layered. It's almost breathtaking when all the pieces fall into place at the end.
It's hard to write too much without giving away spoilers. Let me just say that I think all hell is going to break loose in the next book in the series. ...more
This book is the fourth in the Harry Hole series and the second in what is called The Oslo Trilogy. The story is complex and multi-layered. It's almost breathtaking when all the pieces fall into place at the end.
It's hard to write too much without giving away spoilers. Let me just say that I think all hell is going to break loose in the next book in the series. ...more

Harry Hole returns in the fourth book in the series by Jo Nesbø (although only the second, translated ably, by Don Bartlett) and follows on from
Redbreast
. Some time has passed between the two novels, although it's not entirely clear how much - not enough to change the other people around him too much or for him to have ruined his relationship with Rakel (surely only a matter of time) or to have forgotten the murder of his partner, Ellen, but enough for there to be a new girl on the force -
...more

Watching David Suchet's Hercule Poirot tv series is like comfort food for me. I've watched the lot of them repeatedly (my family would say ad nauseum). Poirot follows his tried and tested method in most of the series/books, he searches, he finds, he ponders and keeps his card close to his chest. In the meantime I enjoy myself feeling part of the story as I follow him from here to there and discover this and that. I get most of the thrill during this part of the story, not the part where he gathe
...more

It took Harry ten minutes to walk from Police HQ to Kjølberggata 21A. In its time the run-down brick building had been a tannery, a printing press, a forge and probably several other things too. A reminder that Oslo had once had industry. Now Krimteknisk had taken it over. Despite new lighting and a modern interior, the building still had an industrial feel to it.
Nemesis is the fourth in the Harry Hole series by leading Norwegian author Jo Nesbø and introduces Beate Lønn, a forensic operator wit ...more
Nemesis is the fourth in the Harry Hole series by leading Norwegian author Jo Nesbø and introduces Beate Lønn, a forensic operator wit ...more

Oct 21, 2014
Cathy DuPont
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Cathy by:
Harry Roolart
I'm dedicating the reading of this book to my friend Harry Roolart
Harry, when he was a bit more active, pestered me until I read the first couple of books in the HH series. After that I was hooked by Harry Hole.
He is in my top three characters who I really love and enjoy reading. (This is a character from authors who are still alive and writing i.e. Michael Connelley.)
So thanks, Harry!
And remember that Harry is my "go to" person for all things Scandinavian. He can tell you how to pronounce Hole ...more
Harry, when he was a bit more active, pestered me until I read the first couple of books in the HH series. After that I was hooked by Harry Hole.
He is in my top three characters who I really love and enjoy reading. (This is a character from authors who are still alive and writing i.e. Michael Connelley.)
So thanks, Harry!
And remember that Harry is my "go to" person for all things Scandinavian. He can tell you how to pronounce Hole ...more

I don’t know how how to describe what I feel at the end of the book!
I know exactly what I felt at the beginning of Nemesis (and through three quarters of the plot):
I thought, it was one of the best mystery books I ever read.
And then...the final spurt towards the finishing line...and...my initial sensations about my reading orgasm went rapidly downwards. And, believe or not, I finished it, if not confused, but more conflicted than I'd like to.

The Book#4 in the series is VERY VERY complex. Many ...more
I know exactly what I felt at the beginning of Nemesis (and through three quarters of the plot):
I thought, it was one of the best mystery books I ever read.
And then...the final spurt towards the finishing line...and...my initial sensations about my reading orgasm went rapidly downwards. And, believe or not, I finished it, if not confused, but more conflicted than I'd like to.

The Book#4 in the series is VERY VERY complex. Many ...more

Nov 18, 2012
Wordsmith
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Nordic Thriller Aficionados
One of The Sites Harry Is Sure To Visit At Least Once Per Novel:
This is actually the second in the series and I have to say I found it better overall than a couple of his later ones. It is interesting going backwards and read of the events alluded to in Harry's future. Witnessing the beginning of his relationship with Rakel, probing the roots of the animosity between him and certain co-workers, indeed, the department in general. Yes, Harry gets his man. But at w ...more
Vigeland Park Oslo, Norway
This is actually the second in the series and I have to say I found it better overall than a couple of his later ones. It is interesting going backwards and read of the events alluded to in Harry's future. Witnessing the beginning of his relationship with Rakel, probing the roots of the animosity between him and certain co-workers, indeed, the department in general. Yes, Harry gets his man. But at w ...more

Oh, Harry Hole... how I love thee. I have missed you! We have so much to catch up.
I loved the book. The story was great, therefore its shiny stars. Why not five? Hmmk, lemme tell you...the audiobook narrator was absolutely HORRIBLE. Monotone, flat, painful. I almost did not listen to the story because of him. Is this Nesbo's fault? Hmm...maybe. I don't know if authors have a saying on who reads their books or if they listen to them prior to the release. If it was not Nesbo I would have quit and ...more
I loved the book. The story was great, therefore its shiny stars. Why not five? Hmmk, lemme tell you...the audiobook narrator was absolutely HORRIBLE. Monotone, flat, painful. I almost did not listen to the story because of him. Is this Nesbo's fault? Hmm...maybe. I don't know if authors have a saying on who reads their books or if they listen to them prior to the release. If it was not Nesbo I would have quit and ...more

Harry under suspicion.
The best so far.
This series is exciting, varied, one visits with Harry exotic places, travels to the past, experiences his successes and failures. That makes him human, real and very interesting. I know now that Harry and I are making big friends.
A delightful change in my reading habits.



And even if the Snowman got no good movie reviews, I have to watch this soon....... ...more
The best so far.
This series is exciting, varied, one visits with Harry exotic places, travels to the past, experiences his successes and failures. That makes him human, real and very interesting. I know now that Harry and I are making big friends.
A delightful change in my reading habits.



And even if the Snowman got no good movie reviews, I have to watch this soon....... ...more

I can’t belive I’ve missed review on this one! Now when I recollect of emotions and impression, I know that I was definitely hooked on Harry Hole after this book. But now after I read the entire series, I can say that this is not the brightest role of Nesbø’s (anti)hero. The side story and the plot which follows investigation of death of Harry’s partner was more interesting for me than the main crime. But still great book! And all the others which followed.

Mar 16, 2020
Hannah
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
thriller-mystery-horror
I thoroughly enjoyed this - I like Harry Hole as a character and I love a good thriller.

Mar 13, 2017
Girish
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
immediate-read-challenge,
books-owned
There are mysteries, there are thrillers and then there is the best of both worlds called Jo Nesbo books. I am officially a fan after Nemesis!
Harry Hole is part of a joint investigation with Robbery department of a bank robbery gone wrong. When the escalations in robberies happen with more daring savagery, Hole starts a parallel investigation with Boete (wonderkid) and an extremely well connected gypsy ex-robber doing time playing mind games.
That is just the beginning. He gets a call from a ex- ...more
Harry Hole is part of a joint investigation with Robbery department of a bank robbery gone wrong. When the escalations in robberies happen with more daring savagery, Hole starts a parallel investigation with Boete (wonderkid) and an extremely well connected gypsy ex-robber doing time playing mind games.
That is just the beginning. He gets a call from a ex- ...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Kindle British My...: Nemesis by Jo Nesbo | 1 | 3 | Feb 23, 2021 04:17AM | |
What gun did Alf Gunnerud have? | 2 | 18 | May 30, 2019 12:59AM | |
Around the Year i...: Nemesis, by Jo Nesbø | 1 | 18 | Sep 16, 2017 07:08PM | |
Check Sverre Olsen's hands | 1 | 18 | Sep 26, 2016 10:29AM | |
Who committed the other robberies then? | 13 | 209 | Jul 21, 2016 07:36AM | |
Elmer and Vigdis *spoiler alert* | 1 | 33 | Sep 18, 2014 05:15PM | |
spoiler question: how did Harry's partner kill Stines husband with her sedestal twitch? | 1 | 72 | Dec 06, 2013 01:56PM |
Jo Nesbø is a bestselling Norwegian author and musician. He was born in Oslo and grew up in Molde. Nesbø graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics with a degree in economics. Nesbø is primarily famous for his crime novels about Detective Harry Hole, but he is also the main vocals and songwriter for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre. In 2007 Nesbø also released his first children's book, Dokt
...more
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