Nemesis, Jo Nesbo, 2008

The beginning of a fascination with Harry Hole (searching the web for the correct pronunciation yielded ‘hole-a’, ‘huller’, and ‘hoola’) an Inspector with the Oslo Police who is an alcoholic, violent, socially isolated, and otherwise unlikable chap but who is an expert policeman, highly moral,  and a sophisticated analyst of criminal psychology.  In this, the fourth of the Hole books, a bank robbery turned cold blooded murder leads Hole to Brazil and Russia, gypsies, and a rogue cop who murders his gangster partners.  Norway is cold, grey, drab, but the book is none of these.  Hot read!