Nick Pateras | The Bat
BOOK REVIEW
The Bat – Jo Nesbø
A glowing example of classical whodunit writing
Approaching the winter holidays, I realized that an astonishing percentage of the words I read in the back half of 2016 lived within either research-heavy nonfiction or in-depth news reports. Though the latter was at times so inconceivable it could have passed as fictional, I was craving a crime thriller of the Jo Nesbø variety, recalling the reverence I felt for the enthralling Cockroaches, my first taste of his penmanship.
The first of ten in Nesbø’s Harry Hole series, The Bat introduces Hole on assignment in Australia, tasked to solve the murder of a young B-celebrity Norwegian. Hole resembles the archetypal flawed hero, with good looks and sharp instincts, but a proclivity for drinking and tendency to compromise his work, as evidenced when he becomes romantically entangled with a key witness. Though he is portrayed as an outwardly reticent and laconic character, Nesbø offers the reader a deep enough dive into Hole’s mind to recognize that he is followed by pernicious demons which frequently tug at his conscience. His surrounding cast is as equally intriguing, as he works with his partner, an Australian Aborigine, to stitch together the fragmented information they gather from a local drug lord, a champion pugilist and an overly flirtatious homosexual clown.
“Everything you do leaves traces, doesn't it. The life you've lived is written all over you, for those who can read.”
The plot ducks and weaves at wonderfully rapid pace and I ate meals in my room to quench my curiosity for the next chapter’s development. One passage involved such an unexpected revelation, that it necessitated a second read to recalibrate my mental imagery of the characters. However, the book wasn’t without its weaker moments: I was particularly disappointed with Hole’s lackluster emotional response when a character close to him is found dead. Another shortcoming was Nesbø’s hurried climax, which failed to recreate the adrenaline rush of previous action-filled scenes.
These unsatisfactory elements remind that The Bat is an early Nesbø work, but still are not salient in frequency or magnitude to detract from a thoroughly enjoyable read. Strolling through fiction of this sort had me recall the pleasure of empowering the imagination and vicariously witnessing the characters’ emotions as they navigated the plot's labyrinth . I certainly won’t permit for this area of my mind to remain dormant for this long again.
-NP, December 2016