Review: Wolf Hour: A Novel

Wolf Hour: A Novel by Jo Nesbo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

The purpose is to try to get inside the head of a killer. 

If you're from the Twin Cities area in Minnesota, you're going to want to read this because of all the “I recognize that!” going on here, non-residents might not get as much from the setting and get lost in the slower moving mystery-thriller. Wolf Hour had two competing timelines, 2022, where an author from Norway is visiting the Minneapolis area to do research on a book he's writing about, the other timeline, 2016 serial murders. This had multi-povs but the two main ones were the 2022 author and the 2016 detective, Bob. Bob's a hardened detective who's going through a divorce, obviously has anger management problems and an incident from his past constantly hovering on the edges that is clearly leading him into depression. 

“What did he say about being lonely?” 

“Lots. That it was slowly driving him crazy.” 

While this was a murder mystery of following along with Bob as he tries to catch up to the killer with some thriller and splashes of horror, I felt this was more of a humanities study on grief. The story mostly follows Bob and while the explicit reveal of what lead to where he is in life now is left until the end, I think it started to become obvious, which lead to a different reading lens view and will have readers connecting other dots. With each character that gets brought in through Bob, his wife, peer Kay, taxidermist, and bartender Liza, it only strengthened that humanity feeling for me. What I'm saying is maybe read this less for thrills and chills and more for emotional working through. 

“I’m looking Chicago,” sang Bob as he raised his glass in a salute, “and feeling Minnesota.” 

For most of the story, especially since their pov all but disappeared I was feeling like the author from Norway angle wasn't really needed but it will come back at the end to connect; not sure it ended up feeling structurally worth it to me. I think there was also a problem of feeling like the story got a bit rambling and seemed to get sidetracked with dissertations at times but, if you don't show up for a straight-lined murder mystery, you'll probably be more receptive to the musings. A fun story for a Minnesotan to read and emotional meat on grief, gun control, and other societal issues.

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Review: The Night House

The Night House by Jo Nesbø
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review 

“H-h-h-he said that you and I . . .” He cupped his hand over the speaking end of the receiver to stop the person at the other end from hearing. “W-w-w-we’re going to—” 

“Tom!” I cried. “Your hand! Drop the phone!” Tom looked down and only now realized that his fingers were halfway through the holes in the receiver. 

The Night House was a standalone story with horror and psychological thriller elements divided up into three parts. Told all from Richard's point-of-view, the first part brings readers in when he's fourteen and has recently moved in with his aunt and uncle, now his foster parents, from a big city to small town Ballantyne. He's not part of the popular crowd and as such, has a bit of edge to him, where he does a little bullying himself, except with classmate Karen, who he has a bit of a crush on. When him and Tom, a boy who is on the outskirts himself because of his stuttering, come upon a phone booth on the edge of the woods, the story takes a horrific turn as Tom is gruesomely sucked into the phone receiver after dialing the number for a Imu Jonasson. 

“I know. But sometimes if you tell a lie enough times, it becomes a bit true anyway.” 

This first part takes up more than half the book and follows Tom as he's accused and looked upon as Tom's murderer and when another classmate goes missing, an FBI agent becomes involved. The only one who believes Tom is Karen and she starts her own investigation into what is happening. Tom goes from finding Imu Jonasson's “Night House” in the woods to ending up at a correctional facility for young people, where he learns that Imu Jonasson was also a patient, learning about black word and white word magic, and then eventually escaping with a set of psychotic twins. The first part wraps up with a battle scene to save Karen's life and sort of happy ending that leaves you wondering where the next forty percent of the book is going to go. 

Something moved up by the window. I looked up. A face. Pale. The expressionless face of a man, as motionless as a painting. A face I had never seen before, yet which still gave me a strange feeling of looking in a mirror. 

The second part spins the whole story on it's head and jumps fifteen years in the future to Richard coming back to Ballantyne for his highschool reunion. He's a famous young adult author after the great success of one of his books “The Night House”, which has also been optioned as a movie. Readers start to get a sense of unreliable narrator with a little bit of Wizard of Oz-ness, as characters appear with slightly different roles than had been presented in, what we now know, was Richard's book we were reading. There's a break through scene where Richard has an emotional breakdown with Karen and he tells her about why he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle, his parents died in a fire. After this story and the reunion party moves to a new Night House, the story starts to spin back to where readers thought it originally was and I got a sense of King's It and the horror comes back into play, only to be spun once again in part three. 

“As far as I know, Imu Jonasson hasn’t lived in Ballantyne since he was committed to an institution. And that was decades ago.” 

“Did he do something wrong?” 

“Oh yes, but not before something wrong was done to him.” 

There were a couple clues in part two about where part three was headed and the story ultimately turns into more of an emotional psychological thriller. The last fifteen percent was more emotional than I expected and I want to say that if you find yourself getting very dizzy from the first two parts, hang on because the third part will complement the first two and make the ride worth while (I can see some horror readers being disappointed). I did feel myself gripping the sides of the book, ready to be spun again, but the ending left with a looking good moment, for now. The first part's horror was engrossing even when it felt the wheels were coming off and the second part's wheels did come off but spun just in time to the emotional third and last part ending. I enjoyed the meaning behind the name Imu and the context of how it ultimately tied into Richard's character and once again, the story reminding us that true horror comes from human nature. 

He laughed. “You should never trust your memory. It only ever gives you what it thinks you need. So . . . well, in that sense maybe it’s just as well to trust it after all.” He laughed again.

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Reading Update: Page 1

 

Drawing ever closer to Halloween! 

🎃🎃🎃 

Reading horror and eating pumpkin! chicken enchiladas 

The troubled kid swears he saw his friend get sucked into a phone receiver in an abandoned telephone booth at the edge of the woods. 

Only a fellow classmate believes him and together they trace the number that was called and end up at an abandoned house, where voices are heard and faces seen in windows. 

Suddenly another classmate disappears and the question of if the voices are real or if we have an unreliable narrator becomes even more unclear. 

The Night House by Jo Nesbø purchase link

Pumpkin Chicken Enchiladas recipe

I liked the pumpkin but not sure it added to dish