When Harry left Oslo again for Hong Kong, fleeing the traumas of life as a cop, he thought he was there for good. But then the unthinkable happened. The son of the woman he loved, lost, and still loves is arrested for murder: Oleg, the boy Harry helped raise but couldn't help deserting when he fled. Harry has come back to prove that Oleg is not a killer. Barred from rejoining the police force, he sets out on a solitary, increasingly dangerous investigation...

"Detective Harry Hole embarrassed the force, and for his sins he's been reassigned to mundane surveillance tasks. But while monitoring neo-Nazi activities in Oslo, Hole is inadvertently drawn into a mystery with deep roots in Norway's dark past, when members of the government willingly collaborated with Nazi Germany. More than sixty years later, this black mark won't wash away--and disgraced old soldiers who once survived a brutal Russian winter are...

"It's fascinating to watch this Norwegian author adapt our homegrown monster [the serial killer] to a foreign culture.... When things go wrong, Harry goes on a bender, but when he's on his game, no one is better than this obsessive detective. He systematically works his way through the intricacies of a plot that speeds along like a bullet train."—New York Times Book Review

Detective Harry Hole is on the trail

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"Harry Hole returns in the eleventh installment of the author's bestselling, electrifying crime fiction series-published in 48 languages, more than 30 million copies sold worldwide. In Police-the last novel featuring Jo Nesbø's hard-bitten, maverick Oslo detective-a killer wreaking revenge on the police had Harry Hole fighting for the safety of the people closest to him. Now, in The Thirst, the story continues as Harry is inextricably drawn back...

In the depths of winter, a killer stalks the city streets. His victims are two young women, both found with inexplicable puncture wounds. The police are running out of options. Deeply traumatized by a previous investigation, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong's opium dens. But with his father seriously ill, Harry reluctantly agrees to return to Oslo. He has no intention of working on the case, but his instinct takes...

"Two young women are missing, their only connection a party they both attended, hosted by a notorious real-estate magnate. When one of the women is found murdered, the police discover an unusual signature left by the killer, giving them reason to suspect he will strike again. And exposing him calls for a detective like no other. But the legendary Harry Hole is gone--fired from the force, drinking himself to oblivion in Los Angeles. It seems that nothing...

Oslo Police Detective Harry Hole is assigned to investigate a series of bank robberies of unparalleled savagery while at the same time absolving himself of the murder of his former girlfriend in a criminal investigation led by his longtime adversary Tom Waaler and Waaler's vigilante police force.