Blood Ties - Softcover

Nesbo, Jo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593689534 ISBN 13: 9780593689530

Verlag: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes an explosive novel about a community in crisis and two brothers on the verge of losing everything they've worked so hard to achieve.

"Nesbø has established himself as the king of Nordic noir." --NPR's All Things Considered

FAMILY COMES FIRST. NO MATTER THE COST.

By all accounts, Carl and Roy Opgard are doing quite well for themselves. Or at least they're doing as well as can be expected in a small town like Os. Carl manages the area's swanky and successful spa and hotel, while Roy runs a nearby gas station and harbors grand plans to build it out into an entire amusement park, complete with a roller coaster. But when news breaks about a new highway to be built nearby, bypassing Os and leaving the town cutoff and isolated, it's clear that something has to be done . . . even if the methods are bound to be dirty. Fortunately, Carl and Roy have experience with just that kind of work.

Meanwhile, the town sheriff has gotten his hands on new technology that will enable him to take a deeper look at a slate of unsolved murders from years past--including that of his own father. And just as the sheriff reopens his investigation, the death toll begins to climb. It's like Roy says about his roller coaster: "Once it's rolling, it's too late to get off."
Blood Ties is a tense, compulsively readable tour de force about loyalty, family ties, and love that is as destructive as it is powerful.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JO NESBØ is a #1 New York Times bestselling author, whose books have sold sixty million copies worldwide and have been translated into fifty languages. In addition to the Harry Hole series, his novels include The Night House, Headhunters, The Son, Blood on Snow, Midnight Sun, Macbeth, and The Kingdom. He is a recipient of the Raymond Chandler Award for lifetime achievement. He lives in Oslo.

ROBERT FERGUSON has lived in Norway since 1983. His translations include Norwegian Wood by Lars Mytting, the four novels in Torkil Damhaug's Oslo Crime Files series, and Tales of Love and Loss by Knut Hamsun. He is the author of several biographies, a Viking history and, most recently, The Cabin in the Mountains: A Norwegian Odyssey.

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1

Everybody has their weak spot.

Dad drummed that into me when he taught me to box. I was smaller than the other boys, but he showed me that even the most frightening opponents have a hole in their defense, some place that’s not covered, a mistake they’re doomed to repeat. He also taught me that it isn’t enough just to find that spot; in addition you have to have a heart that’s cold enough to exploit it without hesitation. And right there you had my weak spot. A heart that bled for people like me, that recognized all weakness as my own. But I learned, and my heart chilled. And now you could say my heart is an ice-cold, stone-dead volcano that had its last and final eruption eight years ago. And even then it was cold. Cold enough to make me a killer already back then.

That’s what was going through my head as I stood on the steps outside a house with a garage and an orchard tinged in fall colors in Kjelsås, in northern Oslo. That I’m a killer.

It was Saturday night, almost eight o’clock, and I’d just pressed my thumb against the bell on the front door. Directly beneath the bell was a heart-shaped ceramic shell that said “The Halden Family Live Here,” along with a smiley face.

I don’t know whether I was thinking about being a killer because I already had a guilty conscience, or to reassure myself that what I was about to do was something I was capable of doing. I’d done worse before.

My heart started beating faster as I heard the footsteps inside. Easy now. Just think fuck everything and get it over with.

The door opened.

“Yes, good evening, can I help you?”

The man was tall, a lot taller than my five feet eight. Slender, almost skinny. Gray hair, youngish face. Forty-one—I’d checked. I saw two snowsuits hanging on hooks behind him, with shoes for adults and kids strewn across the floor in typical organized chaos. According to the registration information I’d found online they’d owned the house for four years. I guessed Bent Halden’s wife wanted the place because they needed more room once number two was on the way—at least that was how I interpreted her Instagram account. And he’d always wanted something a bit higher up the hill because it was closer to running and skiing country. A Google search turned up his name as a participant in several local ski and orienteering events. But the last one was a few years back, so there was presumably less time now for that kind of thing than he’d planned. Partly because two kids are more than twice as much work as one, mostly because the company he’d started with a colleague named Jon Fuhr took up more—not less—of his time than before they became their own bosses. It’s just a guess, but I doubted I was too far off. Their company was called GeoData and they had been commissioned to examine the geology around Todde in connection with the tunnel being built to replace the road that ran straight though the middle of Os, as it had done as far back as people could remember, long before it was classified as an A-road in 1931.

I moistened my lips.

“Roy Opgard. Don’t know if you remember me?”

I tried to give him my friendly, maybe slightly anxious country-bumpkin-in-the-big-city face. Not my specialty. I’m guessing I looked like a Roy anyway. A bit dark, closed, reserved. Fortunately for me it seems to be a type Norwegians trust, probably because we think there’s some correlation between being shy and socially inept and honesty. Well, that’s the way I think too, so that’s okay.

Bent gave a long-drawn-out “Aaah” that was somewhere between a “Yes” and a “Not sure.”

“I fixed your car when you were working in Os,” I added.

Bent swished his finger through the air.

“Of course! And you made a really good job of it too.”

The skin in his forehead folded into several V-shaped rows. “Didn’t the money come through?”

“Oh yes, yes.” I tried a little laugh. “Sorry, I probably should have called you first, but that’s the way we do things out in the sticks, you know. Just turn up on your doorstep and ring the bell. But I’ve been in Poland, just got back, and since I was in town I remembered I had something of yours in my glove compartment. This.”

I held it up in front of him. And sure enough, I could see that Bent hadn’t the faintest idea what that shiny little metal object was.

“Found it after you got the car back. Must have just forgotten to put it back again. Of course, the car works without it, but much better with it. Where is the beast?”

“The car? Now? No, really, I’m sure I can fit it back myself. What is it, anyway?”

“Well, if you don’t know, how are you going to do that?”

Bent looked at me. Smiled and shook his head. “Good point.”

“I’ve been paid for a job that, for once, I haven’t done properly. It’ll only take five minutes. Where . . . ?”

“In the garage,” said Bent, stepping out of his slippers, lifting the keys to the Audi from a hook and pulling on a pair of sneakers. “Camilla! I’m just going down to the garage!”

From somewhere inside the house came the shouted reply: “Sigurd’s off to bed now.”

“If you get him ready then I’ll read to him!”

“You got kids?” Bent asked above the scraping noises as we walked the gravel path that led down to a large, white-painted garage. I wasn’t expecting the question and just shook my head and tried not to think that she would have been seven years old now. Not that I knew it would have been a girl, but I’d just grown more and more certain of it. I swallowed back a lump. It was a little smaller with every passing year, but it would never quite disappear completely.

“So you run that garage in Os?” His voice was friendly.

“No, closed down a long time ago. But I’m a certified car mechanic, so now and then I take on a repair job just for the fun of it. I run the gas station next to it.”

Bent held up his keys when we arrived at the garage and the door opened automatically. I could see it was the expensive type. Bent Halden would probably have chosen something different if he was buying today.

“Yes, now I remember the local guy who recommended you told me. You’re what’s-his-name’s brother, that . . .”

“Carl Opgard,” I said.

“Yes.” Bent laughed as we walked in. “The king of Os.”

I noticed he immediately realized how patronizing that sounded. As though Os was some shitty little town where Carl swaggers around like some pantomime king. King of the dunghill.

“I didn’t mean . . . I just gather that he owns most of the village.”

“He owns most of Os Spa. Open the car?”

“Yes, but doesn’t that make him king of Os?”

I slipped into the driver’s seat and Bent got into the passenger seat. I pulled out a screwdriver, flipped off the panel under the steering wheel and started turning the screwdriver. Bent watched, pretending to take an interest. “So what’s the news?” I said as I moved the leads. “From the preliminary reports I saw that your firm thinks the mountain at Todde looks okay?”

“That’s right.”

“I see. How sure are you?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Is that possible, when you can’t see inside the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593689534
• ISBN 13: 9780593689530
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar