Headhunters: ‘Keeps the twists and shocks coming hard and fast’ Metro

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Headhunters by Jo Nesbo - Penguin Books Australia Headhunters by Jo Nesbo - Penguin Books Australia

Headhunters is narrated by the thirty-five-year old headhunter -- matching executives and corporations -- Roger Brown, considered one of the best in the business. Roger is devoted to his wife, too -- relatively faithful (with one brief slip), and willing to do anything to make her happy, including paying for a lifestyle -- fancy house, fancy art gallery for Diana to run -- that is way beyond his pay grade. The over-intricate overlap of conspiracies and the number of coincidences mean that this isn't a particularly believable thriller; still, the big puzzle picture (and how it works out) is satisfying -- and a lot of the action is fun.Smart dialogue, intricate plotting, brilliantly conceived characters, perfect pacing. This novel should put Nesbo at the top of any reader’s must-have list." - Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail The Rubens belongs to Clas Greve, and that's not all Greve has to offer: the former CEO of a GPS technology company that was recently bought out, he is the perfect candidate to head up Pathfinder, who are searching for a new man to run the company; if Roger can land this scalp he'll really have it made.

Jo Nesbo You Should Definitely Read - Penguin 8 Books by Jo Nesbo You Should Definitely Read - Penguin

Greve is a handsome, wealthy, charismatic son of a Dutch father and a Norwegian mother, apparently between jobs, having recently worked for a major military contractor. Roger seeks him out for Pathfinder, a conglomerate run from Oslo, and sees him as a target for theft as he secretly owns a valuable Rubens that apparently came into the family's hands by way of Nazi confiscation during the second world war. And Nesbø also proves himself a master manipulator, with some very nice twists, which allow him to bring the story to a surprisingly satisfying (if a bit too good to be true) conclusion. It probably plays better on the screen -- and it has been made into a movie, with an American re-make in the offing -- but it's an enjoyable B-thriller-read, too. The cinema, as Karl Marx might have said, repeats itself, first as a Scandinavian thriller, then as a Hollywood remake. An American company acquired the rights to remake Morten Tyldum's Headhunters while it was still in production. They'll have trouble in making a movie half as good or half as authentic. Still, one has to hand it to Nesbø: all the pieces -- and the various clues strewn through the story -- eventually fall into neat (if still often very unlikely) place.

During the opening credits, Roger's no-nonsense voiceover explains the five rules of art theft. He then proceeds with a poised wit to demonstrate his manipulative gifts by bending a client to his will while extracting the information he needs to steal a valuable lithograph of Edvard Munch's The Brooch. Roger is not particularly likable and his vicious world of international commerce is unattractive, though it glitters in a Mad Men way. He is more like Patricia Highsmith's psychopathic antihero Tom Ripley than Raffles, EW Hornung's gentleman thief. However, a malevolent fate comes up the Kattegat in the form of Clas Greve (leading Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to pursue the complacent, hubristic antihero. Greve, of course, is not all he seems. He's a trained special forces operator with experience gathered around the world, as well as something close to the devil incarnate, a man with no morals and no capacity for empathy. As he goes mano a mano with Roger across Oslo and around the magnificent surrounding countryside, our sympathies gradually shift to his desperate but increasingly resourceful quarry, who attempts to stay alive by understanding his complex position. Edgar Allan Poe's story "A Descent Into the Maelström", you may recall, is set in Norway, and its narrator, caught in the giant whirlpool, saved himself by carefully observing his predicament and working out an escape route. There are a lot of pieces -- indeed, near the end Nesbø has to resort to a lengthy scene in which the policeman who 'solves' the case explains exactly what (appears to have) happened, which explains a lot. Throw in the GPS technology he's familiar with from his previous job and he is a very well-equipped hunter.