Politi

by Jo Nesbo

[clq]

Some times I'm annoyed at not liking a book as much as I wanted to. Politi wasn't one of these books. In the case of Politi I'm almost annoyed that I liked it as much as I did.
Politi really is a page-turner, but not in the traditional what-happens-on-the-next-page sense of the expression. With this I got a slightly more satisfying what-happens-a-few-chapters-from-now feeling, which was a pleasant surprise. It sustains its pace throughout and never gets boring. It really is impossible to argue against Politi being a great book. It's a well thought out, well executed, exciting thriller.

Unfortunately Politi also does two things I generally really dislike. Most of the peripheral characters are almost remarkably static, and the story is at times almost cringingly predictable.
The character-thing I can forgive. There are quite a few characters, and developing them all would probably ruin the pace of the book. Still, it would be nice to at least live under the illusion that there was more to a character than what first meets the eye.
The predictability thing, however, is more annoying. Many of the major plot-twists are foreshadowed so thoroughly that I was just waiting for them to happen. I assume this was intentional some of the time, but other times it was obvious that my mind wasn't where the author intended it to be. Some of the red herrings were also so red, and so fishy-smelling, that they failed to serve their purpose even a little.

Then again, these very things might be exactly what makes the book both incredibly easy to read and so easy to like. The book's apparent flaws might be cleverly designed to sucker people into enjoying the book despite themselves, adding a tinge of guilt which serves to enhance the pleasure.
If that is the case I was well and truly suckered. Well played, Jo Nesbø, well played.