The Bat

Jo Nesbo is one of the world's bestselling crime writers, with The Leopard, Phantom, Police, The Son, The Thirst, Macbeth and Knife all topping the Sunday Times bestseller charts. He's an international number one bestseller and his books are published in 50 languages, selling over 50 million copies around the world.

Before becoming a crime writer, Nesbo played football for Norway's premier league team Molde, but his dream of playing professionally for Spurs was dashed when he tore ligaments in his knee at the age of eighteen. After three years military service he attended business school and formed the band Di Derre ('Them There'). They topped the charts in Norway, but Nesbo continued working as a financial analyst, crunching numbers during the day and gigging at night. When commissioned by a publisher to write a memoir about life on the road with his band, he instead came up with the plot for his first Harry Hole crime novel, The Bat.

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"As Harry tracks down the murderer of a Norwegian TV star reduced to living in desperate circumstances, he is fully formed as the difficult, vulnerable personality we have come to know. The evocation of Australia itself has the customary Nesbo expertise" -- Barry Forshaw Independent "The Bat appeared in Norway in 1997, and it's a fascinating book, filling in the gaps in Hole's biography and telling the story of the murder case in Australia that cemented his reputation as a brilliant investigator... It is a stunning opening to the series" -- Joan Smith Sunday Times "Every book in the series is a fantastic standalone novel but each refers to some element of a previous novel and all mention this, the first case that brought Harry to prominence at home in Norway ... Nesbo, also a singer and songwriter with Norwegian rock band Di Derre, is a terrific writer who knows how to build a story, taking you slowly to the top of a rollercoaster before sending you hurtling towards a solution that you never see coming" -- Andy Hoban Sunday Express "Scandinavian noir goes Down Under... what's fascinating is seeing Hole already equipped with all the obsessional attributes that would merge so brilliantly in subsequent novels" -- Marcel Berlins The Times "Even with this first book Nesbo's command of the idiom is completely in place - there is no sense that the writer was finding his feet and aficionados will be very pleased to slide this onto their bookshelves alongside the other Harry Hole novels" -- Barry Forshaw Daily Express

Harry Hole is fully formed as the difficult, vulnerable personality we have come to know. The evocation of Australia itself has the customary Nesbo expertise...most satisfyingly - we can now see the organic shape that Nesbo always intended his work to take Independent