History Literature / HarryHole

* BenevolentBoss: Bjanre Moslash and Gunnar Hagen are both fairly tolerant and supportive towards Harry, with Gunnar even volunteering to be TheScapegoat in Harry's place on one occasion (in his first book no less, when they'd only known each other for a short time), before the conclusion of the case eliminates the need for a scapegoat.

* DaChief: Bjarne Moslash and Gunnar Hagen both have aspects of the more sympathetic side of this trope.

[[caption-width-right:350:Now comes without the line over the letter Ø.]]

Nesbø's strong anti-authoritarian streak and concern for [[DistressedDamsel women in peril]] have earned him comparisons to the [[Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy Millenium Trilogy]] by the late Stieg Larsson, although Nesbø's work tends to be less overtly {{Anvilicious}} than Larsson's, though more [[CynicismTropes depressing]]. His plotting has also been highly praised. ''The Redbreast'' was voted the best Norwegian crime novel of all time by a poll of Norwegian readers, and ''The Bat'' won the Glass Key award for Best Nordic Crime Novel.

** Even more so in [[spoiler:''The Knife'', when the killer -- Rakel's killer, to boot -- turns out to be good, old, well-liked Bjorn Holm.]]

** One of [[spoiler: The Snowman's]] victim had gotten raped in the past and the paternity test proved that the child was biologically the rapist's, not her husband. [[FromBadToWorse This puts her on the killer's target list, as he assumes that she's an adulteress.]]

* DownerEnding: Phantom ends with [[spoiler: the reveal that Harry's faith in Oleg was completely misplaced, because he really ''did'' kill Gusto, over both drugs and selling Irene as a sex slave for violin. Harry is then shot by Oleg, with his fate being left ambiguous. He does survive though, as revealed in the following book.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In ''The Redbreast'', it's mentioned a few times that Waaler, a racist policeman that both Harry and Ellen dislike, is a fan of {{Music/Prince}} and loudly blasts his music in the police car.[[spoiler: This is the hint that signals to the audience that "the Prince", a clandestine arms dealer for the neo-nazis in Norway, is none other than Waaler himself.]]
** Early on in ''Nemesis'', Trond Grette talks about how he loved his brother Lev despite his hooligan and criminal behavior, and specifically mentions how he used to write his brother's essays for him.[[spoiler: This means he grew very skilled at imitating his brother's handwriting, and meant he was able to fake a convincing suicide note so that the police would not realize that he was in fact murdered by a hitman.]]
* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: In ''The Redeemer'', Salvation Army officers Jon and Robert Karlsen have this dynamic, with Jon being the responsible, sensible and principled brother who is set up for promotion at the novel's beginning, and Robert the impulsive, dangerous sibling who is said to have raped teenage girls.[[spoiler: It's subverted when it turns out it's the opposite: Jon Karlsen is a serial rapist, embezzler and murderer, who lied about his brother in order to throw off suspicion. Robert was the principled one trying to put an end to his brother's crimes. Jon's plot to hire the Redeemer and have his brother murdered in order to prevent him from divulging his crimes forms the backbone of the plot.]]

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: In ''The Redbreast'', Bjarne Møller, Harry's boss, chides him for suspecting his colleague Waaler, despite the fact that Waaler is described as a horrible person with crypto-fascist views and [[spoiler: it's revealed that he's a neo-nazi sympathizer who helps them by using his police connections to smuggle weapons.]] In ''Nemesis'', Harry's newer colleague Beate starts seeing Waaler and initially ignores Harry's warnings not to get involved with him. [[spoiler: She ends up paying the price.]]

* MadeOfIron: Every book has [[OnceAnEpisode at least one scene]] where Harry -- usually through a combination of luck, guile, and [[TheDeterminator sheer bloody-mindedness]] -- survives something that would kill any normal person. Highlights include losing a finger, several attempted shootings, and several attempted drownings.

* MoralityPet: His protege Ellen. So, [[spoiler: it comes as no surprise that Harry takes it hard after her death.]] [[spoiler: Her murder drives the underlying conflict in the Oslo Sequence and ultimately comes to a head in The Devil's Star.]]

* NeverSuicide: ''Nemesis'' [[spoiler: both subverts this and plays it straight: Anna Bethsen really did kill herself in a way she specifically designed to place as much suspicion on Harry and two of her other exes as possible. However, the murdered bank teller's brother-in-law, whom she was planning to run off with, was in fact murdered by a hit man hired by his brother. The inescapable conclusion is that all the crimes were committed as the result of love gone sour.]]

** Tom Waaler, another corrupt cop who despite his awful personality manages to get a lot of good press and promotions thanks to his efficiency in police work, to the point he is being eyed for a promotion to chief by the time of ''Devil's Star''.[[spoiler: He is eventually killed during a confrontation with Harry and his crimes are exposed.]]

* AnyoneCanDie: Present throughout the whole series, but brutally enforced in ''Knife'', [[spoiler:where the focal plot point is the murder of Rakel Fauke, the love of Harry's life.]]

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: In ''The Redeemer'', Salvation Army officers Jon and Robert Karlsen have this dynamic, with Jon being the responsible, sensible and principled brother who is set up for promotion at the novel's beginning, and Robert the impulsive, dangerous sibling who is said to have raped teenage girls.[[spoiler: It's brutally subverted when it turns out it's the opposite: Jon Karlsen is a serial rapist, embezzler and murderer, who lied about his brother in order to throw off suspicion. Robert was the principled one trying to put an end to his brother's crimes. Jon's plot to hire the Redeemer and have his brother murdered in order to prevent him from divulging his crimes forms the backbone of the plot.]]

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: Happens multiple times in the series to women Harry cares about, and it devastates him every time.

** Even more so in [[spoiler:''The Knife'', when the killer - Rakel's killer, to boot -- turns out to be good, old, well-liked Bjorn Holm.]]

Harry Hole is the protagonist in a series of crime thrillers by the Norwegian author Jo Nesbø. A detective in the Oslo Police Department, Harry is usually tolerated by his superiors and colleagues despite his [[TheAlcoholic habitual alcoholism]] and [[CowboyCop unorthodox methods]] because he is a brilliant detective. The first two novels in the series are set in respectively Australia and Thailand, while all the subsequent ones largely take place in and around Oslo. The series has been translated into several languages, reaching bestseller status in Britain and Germany, and contains ten novels so far:

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: In ''The Redeemer'', it's revealed that [[spoiler: Harry's boss Bjarne Møller]] joined a conspiracy involving various police officers and government officials, which participated in various illegal activities like weapon smuggling. He did this under the belief that it was necessary to take extreme measures to fight organized crime in Oslo. Eventually he realizes that he became an accessory to the self-serving corruption of the group when Waaler is exposed, but it's too late, both in the sense that the damage has already been done in the form of the good men and women he's lost and that he can't back out of it easily without endangering his loved ones. He ends up divorcing his wife over it and gets transferred to another city as punishment. Harry eventually figures this all out and speaks to him, but declines to arrest him because he feels they are NotSoDifferent. He disappears and it's revealed in ''The Snowman'' that he committed suicide because he couldn't live with the guilt.

* {{Bathos}}: Despite the books being seemlingly straight-laced thrillers, Nesbø frequently writes in subtle nodes of BlackComedy, most notably having the crimes Harry investigates have silly or even outright absurd elements to them.