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A review by michaeljames122
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbø
4.0
This 3rd book in the Harry Hole series has definitely improved from the first two books, tho I still can't say I'm hooked on Harry Hole yet. The story is a bit complicated, as it moves back and forth from 1944 WWII to just before Y2K. Both of those timelines are intriguing, as so much has changed since then. Both include Nazis (both original and neo), both include dramatic events (war and loss of loved ones), both include mental disorders (MPD and alcoholism), and both are interconnected (as they should be, it would be a bit strange if they weren't). Overall, an exciting read tho I did get lost in the details a few times. Still didn't quite guess the culprit correctly, so I think I'll try another!
Quotes:
"Moving in time to canned music with a troop of people who all liked canned music while an instructor with a rictus smile encouraged greater exertion with such verbal wit as 'No Pain No Gain', was for Harry, an incomprehensible form of voluntary self abasement."
“There was a saying during the war: Those who decide late will always decide right. At Christmas in 1943 we could see that our front was moving backwards, but we had no real idea how bad it was. Anyway, no one could accuse Sindre of changing like a weather-vane. Unlike those at home who sat on their backsides during the war and suddenly rushed to join the Resistance in the last months. We used to call them the “latter-day saints’’. A few of them today swell the ranks of those who make public statements about the Norwegians’ heroic efforts for the right side.”
“Many people believe that right and wrong are fixed absolutes. That is incorrect, they change over time. The job of the historian is primarily to find the historical truth, to look at what the sources say and present them, objectively and dispassionately. If historians were to stand in judgment on human folly, our work would seem to posterity like fossils – the remnants of the orthodoxy of their time.”
“What are your friends like anyway?’ Aune checked his bow-tie to make sure it was straight. ‘They’re like you,’ he said. ‘But my wife knows a few respectable people.”
“He downed the rest of his drink and poured himself another from the bottle of whisky room service had brought up: Jameson. The only good thing ever to come out of Ireland.”
Quotes:
"Moving in time to canned music with a troop of people who all liked canned music while an instructor with a rictus smile encouraged greater exertion with such verbal wit as 'No Pain No Gain', was for Harry, an incomprehensible form of voluntary self abasement."
“There was a saying during the war: Those who decide late will always decide right. At Christmas in 1943 we could see that our front was moving backwards, but we had no real idea how bad it was. Anyway, no one could accuse Sindre of changing like a weather-vane. Unlike those at home who sat on their backsides during the war and suddenly rushed to join the Resistance in the last months. We used to call them the “latter-day saints’’. A few of them today swell the ranks of those who make public statements about the Norwegians’ heroic efforts for the right side.”
“Many people believe that right and wrong are fixed absolutes. That is incorrect, they change over time. The job of the historian is primarily to find the historical truth, to look at what the sources say and present them, objectively and dispassionately. If historians were to stand in judgment on human folly, our work would seem to posterity like fossils – the remnants of the orthodoxy of their time.”
“What are your friends like anyway?’ Aune checked his bow-tie to make sure it was straight. ‘They’re like you,’ he said. ‘But my wife knows a few respectable people.”
“He downed the rest of his drink and poured himself another from the bottle of whisky room service had brought up: Jameson. The only good thing ever to come out of Ireland.”