The Son: Jo Nesbø Skillfully Transforms Revenge to Redemption

The Son - Jo Nesbø

Sixteen-year-old Sonny Loftus came home to find his father slumped over his desk, a pistol by his hand and a pool of blood by his head. A note suggested that he had been a mole in the Oslo police department who’d been tipping off organized crime for years.

Sonny did not take it well… twelve years later, the heroin-addicted young man is in Norway’s most escape-proof prison, convicted of serial murders dating back more than a decade. He’s also become a sort of father confessor, even a healer, to his fellow inmates; one of whom bares his conscience to Sonny one day: the boy’s father wasn’t really the mole, and was forced by a crime boss to kill himself in order to protect his wife and son. Within weeks, Sonny has kicked heroin cold turkey and arranged his own escape.

Once outside the prison walls, Sonny sets about getting even – with everyone involved. Not only does the bloody path he carves though the Oslo underworld get the crime boss’s attention, the local would like very much to discuss his activities, especially a homicide cop by the name of Simon Kefas. Kefas isn’t just another wily old workhorse cop, he happens to have been the longtime partner of Loftus senior. To say he has mixed emotions about The Son of his old friend is an understatement. To say that Simon has some baggage of his own is also an understatement…


Although Norwegian author Jo Nesbø is best known for a series of police procedurals featuring the rather unfortunately-named Harry Hole, The Son is decidedly a standalone novel. Like all Nesbø’s crime novels, this one bears an unmistakable European flavor, in that the hero is defined not by his prowess with weapons and martial arts but by his cleverness and his skill as an investigator. Where the standard American crime novel seems to require bloody shootouts and bruising fisticuffs, the likes of Simon Kefas are marked by their brains instead of their brawn. After all, Kefas is just months from retirement – he probably shouldn’t be entering into hand-to-hand combat in the first place.

Kefas’ role is more than mere investigator: his beloved wife, Else, is rapidly going blind – the experimental surgery that would save her sight would cost more than he could earn in a year. He’s been handed raw recruit Kari Adel to mold into a homicide cop; a task he accomplishes by dropping occasional pearls of investigatory wisdom. He’s definitely flawed – a gambling addiction ruined his career, perhaps his life – yet at his very core, a man of honor.  Nesbø skillfully traces the path of the crimes through the gritty streets of Oslo, from a hot-sheet hotel at the center of town to an ostentatious mansion on a tree-lined street; with stops at a hostel for addicts. He injects love and pathos in equal increments, and succeeds in turning a dark tale of retribution into something approaching uplifting. Small wonder he’s a world-wide favorite, even among American readers who might normally quail at the sight of street names like Ekebergåsen (wonder what Norwegians would think of some of Houston's goofier street names, like “Fair Walnut” or “Rowlock Vine”?).

Overall, The Son marks a solid effort from Nesbø, one that serious crime fiction fans should not miss.