Phantom by Jo Nesbo

Jo Nesbo’s The Leopard, the successor to his wonderful The Snowman, was an over-long disappointment. Phantom, his latest, comes midway between the two. Harry Hole, no longer drinking, returns to Oslo from his Hong Kong exile when he’s told that Oleg, the son of Rakel, the only woman he’s ever loved, has been convicted of killing Gusto, his provider of violin — the fashionable drug more addictive than heroin. Hole can no longer count on his former police colleagues to help him to prove Oleg innocent. Virtually single-handed he descends into Oslo’s dangerous drug underworld and becomes the target of numerous interests anxious to end his life. He’s become outrageously tough, and there’s much violence about, but Nesbo’s extraordinary writing power still mesmerises. Where, though, can Harry Hole go from here?