WOLF HOUR

In 2016, down and out Minneapolis cop Bob Oz tracks an elusive sniper killer—a story Norwegian crime fiction writer Holger Rudi comes to Minnesota to research six years later.

The gunman, Gomez—likely the onetime “killing machine” for a Mexican cartel who called himself Lobo—is out to avenge the shooting deaths of his family at a McDonald’s by gang members. His ultimate aim is to take out the city’s National Rifle Association–promoting Democratic mayor at the group’s annual convention. Oz, who has Norwegian roots—his name is an Americanization of Aass—was kicked out by his wife following an unspeakable family tragedy. Since then, he has slept with so many women he can’t keep them straight (his fellow cops call him One-Night Bob). After he beats up the husband of one of them when confronted, he’s suspended from the force but continues pursuing Gomez with his arduously tested partner, Kay Myers. Among his potential witnesses is Lunde, a friendly taxidermist who educates Oz on his craft. Nesbø overworks taxidermy as a metaphor for repression (Lunde’s customers are “frozen themselves, they’re stuffed themselves, you know?”) and creative writing (Rudi, who’s mainly a framing device, sees himself as a taxidermist in “cloth[ing] a character”). The book’s explicitly stated central theme is loneliness, from which both Oz and Gomez openly suffer. But for all its darkness, the novel is a pleasure to read with its engaging, easy-twisting plot, its cerebral touches, and characters like Liza, a bartender whose teasing scenes with Oz are highlights. Nesbø is clearly having a good time immersing himself in American culture, politics, and policing, revealing “Minnesota nice” as “a friendly, polite surface obscuring a conflict-averse and passive-aggressive undercurrent.” Oslo was never like this.

Another standout standalone from the author of the Harry Hole series.