The Bat

By AM Sunday, January 5, 2014

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Having already enjoyed the one previous Jo Nesbo book that I have read, I looked forward to tackling all his work. Everything in the Harry Hole series was already in the house apart from The Bat which now completes the line up courtesy of having been picked up in a used book ship in town for €1.


The main character is an Oslo police detective who is at pains to point out to any English speaking audience he might encounter that his surname is pronounced Holy. Just in case, a precautionary measure lest he be dismissed as some bum. While not particularly sombre or broody Harry doesn’t take well to being teased.

The Bat, despite being the first in the Hole series was the last to be translated into English. My wife suggested that a reason for this was its possible lack of punching power, which certainly appeared to be the case for the first hundred pages where it seemed to lack bite. That changed once Hole revealed to a female acquaintance something about his past while bluntly stating that he was an alcoholic, some drunk from Olso police HQ who managed to escape sanction when he should not have. That in spite of turning up blocked on duty on more than one occasion being a sackable offence in a country where getting the order of the boot was not something that happened either lightly or frequently. And the few Norwegians that I have met in my life, they could drink. As if to underline the point Detective Hole was a two bottle of bourbon a day man.

Nesbo has become one of the big names of ‘Scandi crime’. The three kingdoms of Norway, Denmark and Sweden between them have produced a glut of great crime novelists. This work fits the genre because of the origins of the author rather than the location of the story. The action takes place in Australia where Hole, a senior investigator with the Norwegian police, is sent to help Aussie counterparts investigate the murder of a Norwegian national. It lacks the atmospheric background that other Scandinavian crime fiction novelists adeptly sketch into their work and which invariably gives it that something extra.

Hole is assigned to work with Andrew Kensington, an Aborigine investigator with much experience who proves a great man to have at your Hole in a manner of speaking. His view of murders is that after a few you notice the similarities. Hole takes a different view, thinking instead that it is the differences that the eye begins to take account of. After a few initial probing forays it becomes apparent that one blonde woman was insufficient to satiate brutal cravings, a factor somehow missed by the Australian cops. Hans Koppel would appreciate the point. A serial killer was on the loose.

Kensington fades from view as Hole takes centre place. He thinks more deeply and is able to join the dots better than his Australian colleagues. The Norwegian investigator's drinking begins to take over, pulling him into a black Hole. The narrative quickly becomes opaque, matters are no longer explained as clearly as they were initially. The jury is still out on the benefits of this narratorial strategy, left to ponder on whether it is an irritant. Micky Rourke in Barfly, where he can be found rolling floors in wrestling matches, tended to produce the same effect.

What Harry lacks in convention he makes up for in efficiency. Determined to be the best as some form of attempt to recompense for past errors he is beyond breaking the law to implement it. He comes to conclude from his ocean of booze that, despite the lack of bite to the start of this novel, if you swim with sharks you are bound to get eaten.

Jo Nesbo, The Bat. Publisher: Vintage, London, 2013. ISBN: 978-0-099-52032-0