Phantom, Jo Nesbo
Phantom, Jo Nesbo
2 Rating(s)
List: $22.50 | Sale: $15.75
Club: $11.25

Phantom

Author: Jo Nesbo

Narrator: Robin Sachs

Unabridged: 16 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/02/2012


Synopsis

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • An “addictive page-turner” (Los Angeles Times)—Inspector Harry Hole attempts to exonerate his would-be son Oleg in this installment of the New York Times bestselling series.

When Harry Hole moved to Hong Kong, he thought he was escaping the traumas of his life in Oslo and his career as a detective for good. But now, the unthinkable has happened—Oleg, the boy he helped raise, has been arrested for killing a man. Harry can't believe that Oleg is a murderer, so he returns to hunt down the real killer.

Although he's off the police force, he still has a case to solve that will send him into the depths of the city’s drug culture, where a shockingly deadly new street drug is gaining popularity. This most personal of investigations will force Harry to confront his past and the wrenching truth about Oleg and himself.

About Jo Nesbo

Norwegian born Jo Nesbo is multi-talented. He was born in Oslo in 1960, growing up in Molde. He received his degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Norwegian School of Economics. He played football and had aspirations of playing professionally, but a serious knee injury destroyed those dreams. He served in the military, then formed a band called Di derre (Them There), who topped the charts in Norway. He kept his number crunching job during the day and his band performed at night.

The band was popular enough for a publisher to ask Nesbo to write a memoir about his life on the road with a band. For some reason, he instead came up with his first plot for what became his signature series with Inspector Harry Hole. The Bat was his first novel in that series.

So, you have a writer, musician, and economic analyst selling more than 3 million copies of his novels by 2014. Then, an astounding 33 million copies worldwide by 2017....... that is some impressive number crunching.

Nesbo has had one children's book (English translation) Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder, and also had one of his novels (Hodejegerne) made into a film, Headhunters.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Baba on July 17, 2022

Harry Hole book No. 9 Harry's now ex-police and living his OK life in the Far East, when on the very few people he cares about in Norway, has not only become a junkie, but been arrested for murder. Now his friends don't want him back, the police don't want him back, Norway doesn't want him back; but......more

Goodreads review by Miles on November 19, 2012

How on earth do I do justice to a book of this magnitude, the simple and honest answer is I cannot, I’m not even going to try. Phantom is a terrific novel, one that will keep you turning the pages and on the edge of your seat from the very first moment you pick up the book right up until the powerfu......more

Goodreads review by Joey on July 26, 2021

5.0 stars — I just finished reading my 7th Jo Nesbo book, “The Phantom”, and it might just be my favorite Harry Hole book yet (although “The Leopard “ was absolutely amazing as well). “The Phantom” brings to mind a very good season of the HBO series, “The Wire” as it is centered around a murder whic......more

Goodreads review by Yun on August 13, 2019

Phantom is my third exposure to Harry Hole (after The Snowman and The Leopard), and it continues to impress. This time, the crime hits close to home because someone Harry cares about is being accused of murder, and Harry is their last chance at freedom. Harry is as flawed a detective as ever, trying......more

Goodreads review by Glenn on July 21, 2018

A slow-burning, impeccably plotted thriller featuring Nesbo’s gruff, tough, haunted and incredibly resourceful ex-cop detective, Harry Hole. After three years in Hong Kong (for an explanation of the gnarly scar on his face see the previous book, The Leopard), Harry returns to Oslo because Oleg, his e......more


Quotes

“Intricate, breakneck plotting makes for an addictive page-turner in Phantom . . . Brings to mind Michael Connelly’s tortured LAPD detective Harry Bosch.”Los Angeles Times
 
“The Oslo depiction adds a contemporary heft to Phantom that expands Nesbø’s reach . . . Suggests more than a few parallels to the great television series ‘The Wire’; perhaps it is one master’s nod to another.”Boston Globe
  
Phantom will maintain Jo Nesbø’s unstoppable momentum.” The Independent (UK)

“Easily the most troubling and heartfelt of this excellent series, Phantom is one of the finest suspense novels to come out of Scandinavia to date.” BookPage
 
“Nesbø’s true subject is the deterioration of the social fabric that has made Oslo such a civilized place.”New York Times Book Review
 
“A compulsive page-turner . . . [Phantom] is expertly plotted and structured, with all the requisite twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. The latter half of the book is also relentlessly paced, reading at times like a Scandinavian police version of the Jason Bourne series.” The Independent on Sunday (UK)

“Far more than a procedural . . . Personal and topical and hip, as usual.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
 
“Nesbø has written a cunningly constructed thriller . . . running at Hollywood summer blockbuster speed.”Richmond Times-Dispatch
 
“Superb on every level . . . Nesbø begins with an emotionally gripping family drama but surrounds it with an elaborate, beautifully constructed plot involving [a] new drug and the ruthless man who rules its distribution. The subplots, plot twists (especially the last one), and the fully fleshed supporting characters—many of whom could drive their own novels—are all testament to Nesbø’s remarkable talent, but finally, it all comes back to Harry and the pain he endures in trying to carve out a separate peace from a world and a past that won’t let him go.”Booklist (starred)
 

“A first-class thriller . . . Contains several twists, some of which will make you gasp and at least one of which will make you cry . . . Phantom is Nesbø’s finest novel, a novel for grown-ups, which triumphantly proves, as Harry says, that ‘humans are a perverted and damaged species and there is no cure, only relief.’” Evening Standard (UK)

“Deeply moving . . . This is Harry’s most personal case.” Publishers Weekly (starred)
 
“Norwegian crime fiction writer Nesbø is one of the best . . . Oslo’s gritty and violent drug world is brought to life through the characters. The fast-paced plots are twisted and riveting, and the two stories collide to reveal a shocking climax. Nesbø is on par with the original Scandinavian duo Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, authors of the Martin Beck series.”Library Journal

“The internationally popular detective series by the Norwegian author builds to a blockbuster climax [in Phantom] . . . Those hooked by [The Snowman] or earlier ones should make their way here as quickly as they can . . . Devastating for protagonist and reader alike.” Kirkus Reviews (starred)
 
Phantom is an astoundingly good novel. Nesbø has done it again.”Trouw (Netherlands)

“Another excellent example of why Nesbø has such a firm grasp on the Nordic crime crown . . . Nesbø’s portrait of venality and corruption is bleakly angry, his peek beneath Oslo’s gleaming façade disturbing; a fascination with addiction adds to his writing’s unsettling intensity. But he doesn’t let this overwhelm a tightly coiled plot.” Metro (UK)

“Once again Nesbø demonstrates that he is a crime writer of absolute world class . . . You will understand what I mean when you read Phantom. And please do, this is a masterpiece of the genre. Jo Nesbø just gets better and better.” Västerbottens Folkblad (Sweden)

“Perhaps it was unrealistic to expect Nesbø to reach the dizzying heights of his two previous books, The Snowman and The Leopard. How wrong I was. Phantom is arguably a much better book than any previous instalments. Nesbø wrings out the tension, by turns painful and delicious, with consummate skill. The surprises come like an avalanche as the end nears, engulfing everything in its path.” Daily Express (UK)
 
“Nesbø is one of the best suspense writers in the world and this novel fully confirms that claim . . . Suspenseful, moving, well written and impossible to put down . . . I just can’t recommend this enough.”Litteratursiden.dk (Denmark)
  
“A brilliant thriller rife with exciting twists by one of the best Scandinavian crime authors.”Bücher (Germany)
 
“Extremely thrilling!” Die Zeit (Germany)
 
“Harry’s most lethally gripping and personal journey to date.”The Mirror (UK)

Phantom must be the crime novel of the year. There is no one better or even equal to Jo Nesbø in Scandinavian crime fiction.” Weekendavisen (Denmark)
  
“Jo Nesbø is a master of his craft. His latest novel, Phantom, is world-class crime writing.” Dagbladet (Norway)