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Blood on Snow: A novel
Unavailable
Blood on Snow: A novel
Unavailable
Blood on Snow: A novel
Audiobook3 hours

Blood on Snow: A novel

Written by Jo Nesbø

Narrated by Patti Smith

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

From the internationally acclaimed author of the Harry Hole novels-a fast, tight, darkly lyrical stand-alone novel that has at its center the perfectly sympathetic antihero: an Oslo contract killer who draws us into an unexpected meditation on death and love.

This is the story of Olav: an extremely talented "fixer" for one of Oslo's most powerful crime bosses. But Olav is also an unusually complicated fixer. He has a capacity for love that is as far-reaching as is his gift for murder. He is our straightforward, calm-in-the-face-of-crisis narrator with a storyteller's hypnotic knack for fantasy. He has an "innate talent for subordination" but running through his veins is a "virus" born of the power over life and death. And while his latest job puts him at the pinnacle of his trade, it may be mutating into his greatest mistake. . . .


From the Hardcover edition.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 7, 2015
ISBN9780553545968
Unavailable
Blood on Snow: A novel
Author

Jo Nesbø

A musician, songwriter, and economist, Jo Nesbø is also one of Europe’s most acclaimed crime writers, and is the winner of the Glass Key Award, northern Europe’s most prestigious crime-fiction prize, for his first novel featuring Police Detective Harry Hole. Nesbø lives in Oslo.

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Reviews for Blood on Snow

Rating: 3.443877571428571 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

294 ratings39 reviews

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  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I found it hard reading for little payback. Most of the time I was asking myself where is this going?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was good. Tight crime thriller. A few touching characters.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Gross in one word just gross. This book is short and good for that, and I find it very difficult to give a rating, because I did not like it but as a plot it could as well be fine. I was annoyed by the slow speed of the events as well as characters, hating the bimbo girl from the very start.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo; (5*)Am I the only one who LOVED this book?Told from the point of view of a "fixer" or "hit man", this rather short novel is about relationships, morality. The atmosphere created in describing the cold of the season parallels the cold in the narrator's life. The author has us see, hear and smell everything that happens to the main character. Theme's and images introduced at the beginning of the tale are brought full circle by the end. a contract killer who is dyslexic and who possesses a real, beating, easily swayed heart. This is classic Joe Nesbo. He brings the reader along as we follow the fixer who finds himself trapped in a position to 'fix' his former boss. Of . Olav is a fixer who justifies his lot in life by articulating that he mostly kills the sort of men who deserve it. He further clarifies his vocation by stating that he's chosen to do this because he will not be a driver, a robber, deal in drugs or prostitution. He's also bad at math.His boss, Daniel Hoffman, is Oslo's Red Light Boss along with sharing the heroin business with a competitor named the Fisherman. Hoffman hires Olav to murder his current wife Corine. Olav stakes out across the street and observes a man arriving in Hoffman's apartment each day, slapping Corina and then having sex with her. Olav follows the malefactor and shoots him in the back. Upon reporting to Hoffman that he'd fixed the wife's lover and that he suspected she was being blackmailed; Hoffman's reply leaves Olav stunned.With that the game of cat and mouse begins with Olav being the one sought for fixing. The story takes place in the 1970's in the dead of winter. The characters turn out to be almost as chilling as the weather. I found the first 2/3 of the book better conceived than the end but still it is a book well worth reading. I understand that the rights have already been picked up by Warner Brothers and the screen adaption will be produced and possibly The ending of this novel made me breathless. At that point I so fell in love with Jo Nesbo!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I didn't find it terribly memorable, but it was still pretty decent. Nice dark themes, and a story that is approached from an interesting angle as well.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quick read, but a work that kept my interest. So many times in books IMHO there isthe introductory, the fluff in the middle and then the meat of the story at the end. This work only 180kept me intetested throughout as Olav. a Norwegiam hitman, performs his assigned tasks. Particularlyintriguing was the hit accomplished in the coffins. Nesbo's writing is quite descriptive and enhances the overall tone of the story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    HAVING READ QUITE A FEW TRANSLATIONS FROM THIS AREA OF THE WORLD I WAS ANTICIPATING READING NESBO. BOY, WAS I DISAPPOINTED. I DID NOT LIKE THIS AUTHOR OR THIS BOOK. WILL NOT READ ANYTHING FURTHER FROM HIM.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Olav is a fixer, a hitman. He gets a phonecall from his boss Hoffman about his next hit. It turns out to be Corina, Hoffmans wife.Jo Nesbo is known for his series of books featuring Harry Hole. This book is a stand alone, very short story. I found it a very quick read with an ok story. I don't cope with short stories very well as I like to get engrossed. I prefer to see characters more fleshed out.A short review really for a shory but ok book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a very short book. It's very sad, but it has a very lyrical ending. Mostly it's about how crappy life is, and how love stinks.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Love some Nordic noir, and this is a pretty good example.

    Olav is a "fixer" aka assassin for hire, working for a crime boss in Oslo. He's very cold-blooded, considers his victims to be "units" and has no remorse over taking lives. He's also got a soft spot for mistreated women which sometimes leads him to take unexpected actions.

    The whole book seems to take place at night and underground, in the rain and snow, with an extended scene in a crypt that would have been funny if it wasn't so gruesome. Very, very dry sense of humor.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The hitman for a crime boss is given an assignment that doesn't sit well with him. The boss wants his own wife killed, an order that the hitman finds so strange that he decides to observe his target for a while and find out why this woman is to die.This is well-written and excellently translated, a character driven story of a hitman who is smarter than he claims and more humane than he wants to be.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Ambrose Bierce, written like a 70s crime drama. It's well-written, but somewhat unpleasant, although you certainly know what you're getting into within the first few pages (Blood on Snow... "the dry, windswept snow was settling around the shoes of the man I had just shot in the chest and neck." [p.1])I'm not terribly fond of grisly crime novels, but I am fond of the larger theme of the book: our conception of ourselves, our ego, versus reality.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quirky but fun.. nice characters, olaf the fixer, the wife, great twists.developed well. Very short story
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo is a very highly recommended Nordic noir crime novel about a paid assassin.

    It is 1977 and Christmas time in Oslo. Olav Johansen is a hit man, a fixer for the crime boss and drug kingpin Daniel Hoffmann. Olav, a sensitive, thoughtful man with dyslexia came into this position because he was seemingly unsuited for any other position within the crime organization. Fixing people is the one thing he has been successful at accomplishing.

    After finishing a fix, Olav is contacted by Hoffmann for another job. This time Hoffmann wants Olav to fix his new, young wife, Corina. This puts Olav into a dangerous position. He already knows too much about his boss's past and this new fix will likely result in Olav being the next target. If he refuses the job, he will also likely be the next target. Olav must figure out a plan to survive. In the meantime, while watching Corina, Olav begins to become smitten with her.

    I was totally engrossed in Blood on Snow from beginning to end. I can see why movie rights have been purchased for this short novel. Olav isn't the usual tough talking assassin. He's sensitive, a reader, thoughtful, and impossibly soft-hearted man who has compassion, even while being very good at his job. Nesbo excels at character development and does a great job with Olav in a smaller number of pages than one usually finds in one of his books.

    This is sure to draw new fans to Nesbo's Harry Hole novels. While fans of Harry Hole might miss him here, I thought this was a very engaging, compelling novel and I was completely immersed in the action and invested in the character of Olav.
    Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday for review purposes.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was my first time reading this author. The main character is a contract killer who apparently has empathy. While that notion is possible, this specific character presents as unrealistic rather than complex. Quick read and worthwhile for readers who like to delve into the minds of criminals.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Something a little different from Jo Nesbo.I'm tempted to call this a novella since it's so much slimmer in length than Nesbo's other works but there are legitamate novels of 200 pages without needing to throw the term novella at them. This is pure crime noir. Set in the Norwegion underworld of drugs and prostitution. That's the background for our protagonist, a genuine anti-hero, who is a Fixer (a hitman) for one of the two heroine "bosses" who'd like complete contol of this area. We meet Olav on the job. He's been hired to take out his boss's wife as she has been cheating on him. Obviously things don't go smoothly on this hit, so there's you plot. But ,ostly this is a study of Olav. We learn about him. He's not a nice guy, he's done a lot of bad things and would continue to do so. We see he has a consiounce about a few things, so he has some humanity. But why these things? They end up getting him in trouble. He's not a likeable character, though the author is trying to make us feel that he's not all bad so perhaps we may like him? I can't fall for it though. Nobody is *all* bad, I suppose Ted Bundy and Adolf Hitler weren't *all* bad but that doen's mean I'm going to like them because they had remorse once. The book has two endings giving us two different outcomes, obviously only one is real and the other is a character's imagination. I can't tell what it's supposed to mean except that there is another book, so I'll know for sure by then. Certainly readable, and I can see this making a good movie, but very different from Nesbo's other work. Don't read this first and judge him by it!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really like his "Harry" books but it is a nice detour to something a bit different.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Wonderfully poetic, dark and thoroughly satisfying.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I like the Harry Hole novels much better than this stand alone book. I can't say that I liked Patti Smith's narration.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Perhaps it's because I've been diagnosed with a serious health issue but I've found that I just don't want to spend time with a story or characters that I don't particularly care for.Although I've enjoyed Jo Nesbo's writing in the past and shared good comments about his novel "The Son," with my book club, "Blood on Snow" left me cold. (Get it?)Olav is an extremely talented fixer for one of Oslo's most powerful crime bosses. He does his job until his boss, Daniel Hoffman, assignes Olav to kill his "Hoffman's) wife.Olav shows empathy for the people he is asked to "fix." He tells the reader that there are certain assignments he just doesn't accept. He can't work with drugs or the people using them. He doesn't work with prostitutes and, unusually, he doesn't work with communists. I guess he gives his subjects a little political questionnaire before pulling his gun out???When Olav sees Hoffman's wife, his feelings are moved and he rescues her from what would have been her fate. Then he must take steps to avoid his powerful boss and find a place to hideI thought Olav was well described but not likable. The description of his childhood and his abusive father was one of the interesting sections of the story. I would have enjoyed more of the descriptions about Oslo so I could picture it more completely.Another part of the story that bears discussion is that on one occasion, Olav listens to his heart instead of his brain and he kills the wrong person. This was a man who was abusing his wife. Olav probably went back to his early adulthood with his own father when Olav turned the gun on the abusive person instead of the woman being abused.Where I do enjoy Jo Nesbo's writing and will look forward to the next Harry Hole novel, I expected more from this novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is really short, but I couldn't help but think it is like taking a class on how to write a thriller as I read the novelette. The book was translated from Norwegian to English. It's all about Olav who is a fixer for the crime bosses in Oslo. The book has the tightest plot I've seen in a thriller, and current, much more wordy thriller writers could learn a lesson from this little novelette. Nesbo says it all in so few words, but the words he uses describe perfectly the live of Olav. He is a very talented fixer (contract killer). But he also shows a huge capacity for love. He is the product of a very disfunctional home life. His course is set when he is still very young as he takes steps to deal with his abusive father.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Blood on Snow war mein erstes Buch von diesem Autor, den ich bisher nur als Namen von Bestsellerlisten oder prominent ausgestellten Krimis in der Buchhandlung kannte. Die Geschichte hat mich sofort angesprochen: Was passiert, wenn sich ein Auftragskiller in sein Auftragsopfer verliebt? Wie sieht es in der Gedanken- und Gefühlswelt von jemandem aus, der eiskalt andere Menschen umbringt? Kann so ein Mensch überhaupt tiefergehende Gefühle entwickeln?Der Autor hat ein faszinierendes Porträt eines Mannes entworfen, der sich selbst als nicht besonders intelligent einstuft, gleichzeitig aber unglaubliches Wissen und eine sehr genaue Beobachtungsgabe besitzt. Das Buch ist aus der Ich-Perspektive von Olav, dem Auftragskiller, geschrieben, und genau da liegt auch einer meiner Kritikpunkte. Zur Person passend, ist die Wortwahl manchmal zu unerträglich einfach und langweilig, während andere Passagen absolut fesselnd sind.Der Handlungverlauf schwankt zwischen unglaublich und skurril, wird aber gerade deshalb nie langweilig und entschädigt für einige unglaubwürdige Wendungen. Gegen Ende wird es dann auch richtig spannend und ich wurde noch einmal ziemlich überrascht.Unangemessen finde ich Format und Preis für dieses ausgesprochen kurze Lesevergnügen, das zudem nur den ersten Teil einer Serie bildet. Das neuerdings beliebte, etwas größere Softcover-Format mit vergleichsweise dicken, dafür eher sparsam bedruckten Seiten soll hier wohl den Eindruck eines vollwertigen Romans erwecken, sicherlich aber den vergleichsweise hohen Preis rechtfertigen.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Olav tries to put what he does for a living on a professional footing: he refers to those who pay him as his clients, and those he kills as units. This is part of his own strategy to remain aloof and to depersonalise what he does.When he is contracted to kill the client's wife, things begin to go wrong, and Olav makes a decision which means his client will be gunning for him, literally. Olav tries to play Oslo underworld bosses off against each other. But not everyone is as loyal as he thinks they are.BLOOD ON SNOW is really a novella, a quick read, a short snippet of Olav's life, not a Harry Hole novel. Even so, we learn quite a bit about Olav, his background, and what he does.I think the thing I liked best was the twist in the tail in the final pages.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    First time to read this author and I really enjoyed it. The author has a series going that I may have to try.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I have to say, the narrator of this story - the gruff contract killer Olav - really grew on me as the tale progressed. This is a quick, fast-paced (and relatively short) read. I definitely appreciated the author's use of language and character development, although I was a little disappointed (or maybe just saddened) by the ending.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Still good stuff from new I but this is more like a snack than the main meal we normally get.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Olav has proved to be a below average criminal in all but one area. He has washed out as a robber and as a pimp. He is a standout, however, in fixing things for his boss. Fixing is a euphemism for killing problem people, and in this he has done very well.Olav is basically a tender-hearted but very lonely man, the victim of an incredibly dysfunctional upbringing by an alcoholic mother and an abusive father, but he has left that behind him for the most part. He reads almost constantly, has no close friends, but he does have a thoughtful and rich imagination.His trouble comes when his boss, Oslo's chief drug king pin, tells Olav to find a way to kill his wife. But when Olav begins to watch her to determine how exactly to carry out the task, he becomes quite infatuated with her, and gets creative with the assignment in order to save her life.And then it gets complicated fast.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Jo Nesbø's tale of the fixer, Olav, makes the reader fall in love with a character you should hate. Throughout the book you receive glimpses into Olav's past and learn what makes him tick. Immersed in the criminal underground the reader finds out what it's like to be a fixer who is now slated to become the fixed.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Ein Buch wie ein Espresso-Shot. Kurz und knallhart, mit Mord, Liebe und Tod. Empfehlenswert, wenn auch nicht so tiefgehend und hintergründig, was aber wahrscheinlich vom Autor so beabsichtigt war.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Olav Johansen is a walking contradiction: He's a cold-blooded killer with a heart of gold. Normally this is not a problem. . . .Olav is a fixer for a high-profile crime kingpin in 1970s Oslo. He easily takes care of anyone who causes trouble for his boss. But he is more complicated than he seems. Olav's latest job puts him at the pinnacle of his trade, but it may become his greatest mistake: It turns out that the more you know about your boss's business, the more your boss might want you fixed yourself—especially if you're falling for his wife.I listened to this book on audio and found it to be quite different. I think I like his Harry Hole novels better though. This one was more or less a short story and I didn't particularly like the reader whose voice was very monotone. Nesbo's writing is good and the translation went well but the main character was not too likable. It is a reminder, though, that I do have to get back to the Harry Hole books as I have really enjoyed those.