Prim’s twisted thoughts and nightmarish deeds are mind-reeling and stomach-turning ... Mr. Nesbø excels at manipulating this sort of ghoulish material. He can heighten suspense with a single word and wrong-foot the most attentive customer.
Deeply dark and graphically gruesome... while also drily funny at times ... Killing Moon is not the easiest book to jump into for anyone who hasn’t read the whole series, but it’s riveting even if you don’t know all the history.
Despite deep dives into a serial killer’s manipulative psyche and unflinching hard-boiled brutality, this is a virtual romp as far as Harry Hole stories go ... Nesbø sweetens the storytelling pot by wrapping fears of bioweapons in twisted-love and revenge themes and offering a master class in uncontrived red herrings
Nesbø never releases the heartstrings through an otherwise classic dark police procedural ... Fans of the series will find this sleuth’s grief and loss powerful and will appreciate how life forces Harry back into the work he does so well. Newcomers to Nesbø’s well-established investigations won’t struggle for context, though.
There are a lot of noxious details in Killing Moon ... In plotting this book, Nesbø gives us a heap of misleading clues, mistaken arrests, red herrings and blind alleys. He is a master of misdirection.
Killing Moon is so cruelly, brutally misogynistic and brimming with every savage cliche of crime fiction that it’s barely readable ... Storytelling that relies on tired cliches that frame women as hapless gold-digging victims who are lucky to have an ancient, alcoholic ex-cop on their case is a literary tradition we can do without.
Like the old pro he is, Nesbø doles out some teasing details about the killer, who calls himself Prim, early on while withholding enough information about Prim’s modus operandi, motive, and true identity to keep the pages fluttering long past bedtime. A battered hero, a memorably creepy villain, a series of false endings worthy of Jeffery Deaver: What’s not to love?
Covers familiar terrain in a too familiar way ... The killer’s unusually gruesome method is the book’s only novelty—otherwise, Nesbø hits all the typical beats of a serial killer thriller ... This is a shadow of the author’s best work.
