By far the best parts of the book are the descriptions of Harry’s detective work and his leaps of intuition which gradually unravel more and more complex relationships between various characters. Seemingly oblivious to these machinations, Harry, Kaja and a forensic specialist investigate the crimes – soon discovering a link between them.

The head of Kripos, Mikhael Bellman, is a political operator who manipulates Harry’s boss into seconding Harry to his own team, with the aim of taking the credit himself for anything Harry discovers, so he will be head of the new set-up. He isn’t tempted, until Kaja tells him that his father is dying.īack in Oslo, the justice ministry is planning to merge the regional crime squads and Kripos, an elite unit that can be called upon to help with serious crimes, into one group.

A fellow detective from the crime squad, Kaja Solness, is sent to bring Harry back to Norway because the police believe that a serial killer is at work and Harry is their best detective. Harry is in the Oslo police, barely, having taken off to Hong Kong after the end of the previous novel ( The Snowman) and wallowing in various pits of despair. By the end, he's ready to concede that what he most wants is 'an armored heart.The Leopard has all the usual ingredients of a Harry Hole novel. Hole, put through the emotional wringer in The Snowman, doesn't get much of a reprieve in this intense outing. Nesb moves the action easily from Hong Kong to Norway, with side trips to the Democratic Republic of Congo, without ever losing the plot's sense of urgency. When a mid-level politician's body is discovered in a possible suicide that's soon dubbed murder, Hole realizes a single killer is at work and not yet done.

Back in Norway, little links two murdered women except the unusual stab wounds in their mouths. Considered an expert after catching the serial killer known as the Snowman, Harry is marginally intrigued by the possibility of another serial killer loose in Oslo. Harry Hole reluctantly agrees to return home from Hong Kong, where he's been hiding out for months, after an Oslo Crime Squad colleague tells him his father is in the hospital. In Nesb 's outstanding follow-up to The Snowman, Insp.

The leopard by jo nesbø