Meet a detective on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a hired assassin facing his greatest adversary; and two passengers meeting by chance on a plane, spelling romance or something far more sinister. He’s an international number one bestseller and his books are published in 50 languages, selling over 33 million copies around the world. Authors cannot simply build a pattern of evidence and in the last three pages introduce a new character or new plot vehicle which renders all aforementioned clues irrelevant. I am finding that the more people talk about the idiosyncrasies of Harry Hole, the more I want to read about him!

I gave this book 2 stars because although I found the first story very good, I wasn't too keen on many others. We at Penguin Random House Australia acknowledge that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the Traditional Custodians and the first storytellers of the lands on which we live and work.

He is best known for directing the 2016 TIFF drama Lady Macbeth, which earned him BAFTA and DGA nominations. He has internal demons that beset him constantly (his colleagues think of him as a sullen alcoholic, but there’s more to it than that), and the only distraction he knows is to pursue the external demons, who go about in the world and take away the lives of those not ready to give them up. A single story about jealousy and one about power among stories on other themes would have worked better for me.

My rule is I give an author who is new to me two chances to impress me and sell me on his/her style and story-telling. I have not read all of the author’s previous work but I’m familiar with his successful series featuring the enigmatic investigator, Harry Hole. Nicholas Guy Smith read The Jealousy Man, and Black Knight, which kept me enthralled to the final minute. So, after (finally) finishing that first section--which had started so promisingly but wound up less-than-compellingly--it took me at least a week to even consider picking the book back up.The book starts well and the first short story was addictive but many of the other stories were predictable, repetitive and too short to get absorbed. Nesbø delivers stories ranging from dystopian visions to time-honored tales of duplicity and revenge. Michaelides takes a literary turn in his latest novel, employing an unreliable narrator, the structure of classical drama, and a self-conscious eye to dismantling the locked-room mystery. Jo Nesbø is one of my favourite authors and the quality of his writing is apparent in many of these but not all in my opinion. Special thanks to Knopf Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my own opinion.