In print

My review of Jo Nesbø's The Redbreast is in this week's Time Out New York. The book, a Norwegian thriller, provided a bit of relief just when I was getting a little sick of Scandi noir—which is a shame since I do tend to prefer crime in a cold climate. It's just that as with all trends, Scandi noir has been mined to death and the latest books to come out here in the US have been by decidedly lesser lights. Critical attention seems to have switched to the likes of John Burdett's Thailand-set series (Bangkok 8, Bagkok Tattoo) but I find his plots and characters preposterous. Bit of a problem for a book…

Anyway, The Redbreast's certainly a good page-turner and I'm looking forward to more Nesbø. Now if I could also get my hands on Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy… Best-sellers in Europe, these Swedish novels are still not available in the US, though Amazon seems to indicate a British edition of the first volume is due in January.