"The Redbreast" by Jo Nesbo (2000)

"Harry cast his eyes around.  At the tidy, well-organized shelves of ring-binders neatly displayed in chronological order.  At the walls where diplomas and distinctions from a career in smooth ascent hung.  A black and white photograph of a younger, uniformed Kurt Meirik, with the rank of major, greeting King Olav hung behind the desk and caught the eye of everyone who came in.  This was the picture Harry sat studying when the door opened behind him."

This is the third of Jo Nesbo's books to be reviewed here.  I've also read The Snowman, his most famous work, and The Jealousy Man, a more recent collection of his short stories.

The Redbreast represents a much earlier effort from the same author.  It was the third of his novels to see publication, and also the third of his novels to feature protagonist Harry Hole.  It's a far less mature work than the universally acclaimed The Snowman, revealing an author less ready to cut down a story to its essential details.

The novel opens with Harry Hole's failed assignment in support of the U.S. Secret Service, and from there moves into a murky plot involving Norwegian neo-Nazis, actual Norwegian Nazis fighting on the front lines during World War II, and a series of inexplicable murders centered around an illegally imported rifle.

To be honest, I had trouble getting through The Redbreast.  It's very obtuse at times, and I had a lot of difficulty telling one Norwegian ex-Nazi from another.  The parts of the novel set in the modern day are alright, but they're never successfully tied to the parts of the book taking place near the end of WWII.  The "twist" at the end really comes out of left field, and seems more an attempt to bring a narrative that's going nowhere fast to a desperate close.

In my opinion it's a mediocre book by a writer who'd go on to do much better things.  It's not terrible, but it does suffer in comparison to his most famous work.

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Hey Kids!! Comics!!

1. Gideon Falls Volume 1: The Black Barn by Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino and Dave Stewart

Of the three comic books discussed here Gideon Falls is my favorite by far.  Jeff Lemire has a great ear for dialogue, and he adds enough exposition without crowding the story.  Andrea Sorrentino's art is by turns beautiful and eerie, and the way she (he?) uses panels in this book is a wonder to behold.

A Catholic priest assigned to the Gideon Falls parish stumbles into some mysterious happenings around town, while a psychiatrist treating a "schizophrenic" discovers that there's more to his "delusions" than meets the eye.  From that point on the weirdness only escalates, and I'm looking forward to reading the other five volumes in this series if and when I come across them.

There's been a TV adaptation of this comic book series in the works for a while, but no news on its progress since 2019.  It would seem that COVID derailed it.

2. Tokyo Ghost: The Atomic Garden by Rick Remender, Sean Murphy and Matt Hollingsworth

My second favorite of these three comic books.  It's got that early 80s Frank Miller/Neuromancer/Martial Law vibe, and although it's somewhat derivative I'm thinking the second installment is probably much better.  Yes, first impressions are important, but sometimes you have to give writers time to set up a story.

In the distant future two lovers, one of them hopelessly addicted to technology, journey to Japan to fulfill a contract.  Rick Remender's dialogue is well done, and Sean Murphy's art has a kinetic quality that jumps off the page.

A movie adaptation was in development, but no news since 2021.

3. Night of the Ghoul by Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla

My least favorite of these three comics.  The art is suitably spooky, but Scott Snyder needed to slow things down and explain the plot better.  What's going on with that basement beneath the retirement home?  And why does the son character randomly leave the car and start exploring a sewer during a rainstorm?  And what does the mom character having early onset Parkinson's have to do with anything?

A film adaptation could work, but whoever wrote the screenplay would need to flesh out the the story elements better.  As it is this is more of an outline than an actual horror comic in itself.

When I think about it, Scott Snyder does this kind of thing a lot.  He'll start out with an interesting premise and then laze his way through the rest of the story he's set up.  Dark Knights: Metal is probably the worst example of this tendency.  Cool idea, but it went nowhere fast.

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"Material World" by Ed Conway (2023)

"In those periods when supply chains work and materials can flow freely from one part of the world to another, it hardly seems to matter where things come from, where they are made or how they are made.  They simply turn up and feed into an industrial machine we have stopped attempting to map or understand.  But on those rare occasions when these supply chains break down, most obviously in the face of war and trade battles, all bets are suddenly off.  The Material World rapidly becomes all-important.  Those cheap, ubiquitous materials we could once source very easily from the other side of the world take on a new, urgent dimension.  And given the degree of complexity in product manufacture is greater today than in any previous generation, the potential impact of countries around the world choosing autarky -- trying to survive without imports -- could be severe."

Ed Conway, to quote the author's introduction at the back of this book, "is an author and broadcaster.  He is the Economics and Data Editor of Sky News and a regular columnist for The Times and The Sunday Times.  He has written two critically acclaimed and bestselling books."

The Material World is divided into six sections, these being: Sand, Salt, Iron, Copper, Oil and Lithium.  In each of these sections the author discusses how these materials are mined and their various industrial uses, both high tech and low.  He also delves into the history of how these materials first came to be used, and how the acquisition or present use of these materials either contributes to or potentially alleviates climate change.  

And not to bring politics into it too much, but yeah, The Material World is a very Biden-era book.  Some of the author's optimism with regard to alleviating climate change and reaching certain goals hits differently during the Trump administration.  Yes, the author's heart was in the right place, but some of the "solutions" posited near the end of this book seem very impractical now.

That, however, isn't my biggest problem with The Material World.  My biggest problem is that it's rather boring, and often comes across as a list of semi-interesting factoids that one have just as easily found on Wikipedia.  This book needed some kind of argument to bring its various strands together, and lacking that argument it's best considered as a sometimes amusing, sometimes boring detour through the industrial side of modern society.

I enjoyed the last chapter of this book, but otherwise I can't recommend it.  Those already interested in modern materials science would be better served elsewhere, and those new to the topic will find easier approaches in the popular science section of any local bookstore.

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