THE THIRST by Jo Nesbo Audio Edition

    

    Few authors are sufficiently talented 0r brave enough to create a main character that is over the top compelling and thoroughly unappealing.  Yet that is precisely what Nordic writer Jo Nesbo has done with his alcoholic, demon possessed, sometimes suicidal Oslo police detective Harry Hole.  Don't believe me?  Nesbo is the recipient of the Glass Key for the best Nordic crime novel and his books have sold thirty-three million copies in fifty languages.  Basing my opinion on his Police (2013) and now with the 11th installment in his crime series, The Thirst, this author shows no sign of slowing down.

    Now we find a sober and content (for him) Harry is a lecturer at Police College.  Formerly sleep deprived and angst ridden he now awakens happy, married for three years to the love of his life, Rakel.  It's a state of bliss unfamiliar to him.  He promises Rakel that their uncomplicated life will always be so, but knowing Harry and Nesbo that was not to be.

    There is a serial killer on the loose and his MO matches that of the one killer he was unable to stop.  The murderer cuts the throats of his victims very much like a vampire would.  The first victim was a lawyer a woman in her mid-thirties who specialized in rape cases.  Her neck was covered with puncture marks - the wounds had tiny fragments of rust and paint in them.  She had been a dedicated Tinder follower. The investigating team is stumped.  Then a mere two days later there is another murder, a woman of the same age who suffered the same same puncture marks.  She, too, was a Tinder follower.

    Nearing desperation the chief of police turns to the best murder detective ha has ever known, but Harry is no longer on the force.  He has promised the woman he loves and himself that he will not be involved with the police force again.  He well knows the risks involved if he does. but Harry also believes that the murderer is the one killer who once got away.

    John Lee delivers an outstanding reading of this can't-stop-listening-to tale.