Book Review

By Derryll White

Nesbo, Jo (2008).  Headhunters.

Jo Nesbo is at his best here. The writing is lyrical, weaving a story with so much depth and flow that the reader is swept away.  Pages quiver as one quickly thumbs through incident after incident, working to keep abreast of the constantly changing scene. Nesbo offers no rest.

Roger Brown is a headhunter, securing the best talent for very large corporations.  He has a sideline as an accomplished art thief.  Roger also has a beautiful wife who complicates matters enormously.

The Norwegian setting adds to the mystery.  Things are not quite as the North American reader might normally assume.  There is a sophistication to the settings and characters that one might not be totally familiar with.  But it all magically works, from chic gallery to rural farmhouse, from perfume to excrement, Jo Nesbo makes it believable.

Then, as the best mystery writers sometimes manage, he throws in a totally surprising, unanticipated ending. An aside that speaks well to Jo Nesbo the writer, the proceeds from ‘Headhunter,’ including the film adaptation, go directly to the Harry Hole Foundation, a charity set up to reduce illiteracy among children in the third world.

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Excerpts from the novel:

WOMAN’S LOVE – And sure enough, the day afterwards I got out of bed, went for a job interview with a recruitment agency called Alfa and told them they would have to be idiots not to employ me.  And I know how I was able to say that to them with such unshakeable self-assurance.  Because there is nothing that makes a man grow beyond his own stature than a woman telling him she loves him.  And however much she might have lied to him, there will always be a part of him that is grateful to her for this, and that will harbor some love for her.

PRIVILEGE – Animals, like humans, stick together against intruders and trespassers up here on the mountainside where they have entrenched themselves, raised high above the confusion of the town and the chaotic jumble of interests and agendas. Up here they just want things to continue as they are, for things are good, everything’s fine, the cards should not be re-dealt.  No, let the aces and kings remain in the hands they are in now: uncertainty damages investor confidence, stable economic conditions ensure productivity, which in turn serves the community.  You have to create something before you can distribute it.

LANGUAGE – Rikshospital is situated on one of Oslo’s many sloping ridges, raised high above the town.  Before it was built there had been a small madhouse here.  A name that was changed to an institute for the insane.  And then to asylum, and finally to psychiatric hospital.  And so on as the general population caught on to the fact that the new phrase just meant quite ordinary mental derangement, too.  Personally, I have never understood this word game, although those in charge must believe the general public are a bunch of prejudiced idiots who have to be wrapped in cotton wool.  They might be right, but it was nevertheless refreshing to hear the woman behind the glass partition say: “Corpses are on the lower ground floor, Bratli.”

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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