Blood on Snow

By: Jo Nesbo, Neil Smith - translator

Narrated by: Patti Smith

Olav lives the lonely life of a fixer.

When you ‘fix’ people for a living – terminally – it’s hard to get close to anyone.

Now he’s finally met the woman of his dreams.

But there are two problems.

She’s his boss’s wife.

And Olav’s just been hired to kill her.

From the bestselling author of BAFTA-nominated Headhunters, comes Jo Nesbo’s Blood on Snow.

Narrated by music legend Patti Smith.

Critic reviews

Deserves to be a smash... A perfectly pitched thriller

[An] incendiary cocktail of murder, revenge and a hitman with multiple problems

Nesbo is in bracing form...gripping

Striking in its simplicity… Nesbo is a writer at the top of his game who continues to amaze in new and confounding ways

The undisputed king of Scandinavian crime fiction...I am so used to the energetic plot twists, fiendish violence and addictive verbosity of Nesbo’s writing that Blood on Snow, with its simplicity, brevity and unlikely poetry, comes as a welcome antidote. It is set in the 1970s, an era of increasing fascination to Nesbo, and has a first-person narrative that provides a window into its protagonist’s lonely, tortured soul

Pure, bloody, cold, atmospheric and engaging noir

A fine novel ...suspenseful. Blood on Snow has a lot of that romanticised masculinity one finds in for example mafia movies... it’s one of the contributing factors in making the best passages in this novel truly wonderful literature. If I were to highlight one particular quality, it would have to be how beautifully Nesbø has drawn up his main character and how effective Olav’s narrative voice is.

The story echoes many sources, for example mob films, Spaghetti Westerns, hard-boiled crime and social melodrama...The end, especially, is nothing less than a stylistic masterclass

Jo Nesbø’s unstoppable joy of storytelling has found a new avenue

Blood on Snow is Nesbø’s own “pulp fiction”, in two senses. It’s both a tribute to the simple, hard-boiled narrative style from the old days, but there are also parallels with Quentin Tarantino films... Nesbo’s joy of telling stories doesn't leave anything to wish for. As a tribute to the genre, Blood on Snow also succeeds in reminding us that many of these role models had literary qualities that should not be underestimated.

Jo Nesbo -- what happened to you?

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

oh my gosh, you must be kidding me!! Is this cliche-ridden, flawed, superficial, predictable, dull novel by the same author who produced the eery, deeper, surprising novels of the Harry Hole series?
This book would have been better if the characters had some depth, the story were enticing, and the cliches were dropped.
The performance must have been a joke. Never have I heard a less appropriate reading of a book.

What could Jo Nesbo have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Did Nesbo write this in 2 days while suffering from a hangover? I hope that in future writings Jo Nesbo will stop and think about what he's doing.

What didn’t you like about Patti Smith’s performance?

Shouldn't the narrator be a man? I mean, to go with the main character whose story is being narrated.
Patti Smith has a flat voice, stumbled on words, had some crazy twang where she says "winda" instead of window.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Blood on Snow?

Everything.
Should never have been written.