Wow! Jo Nesbo continues in my mind to be the super star of noir! This is another winner for me. Set in alternating time periods (2016 and 2022) in Minneapolis, the premise is that of a Norwegian journalist coming back to finish a book about a series of murders in 2016. A "lone wolf" sniper has killed several people and MPD detective, Bob Oz, is on the hunt only to be suspended when he's drunk and makes some rather startling statements on camera.
We follow Bob as he continues alone handling his investigation while others proceed officially. It's hard to do a summary without giving away the red herrings that keep you veering in one direction to be caught later going in another m. Suffice it to say you won't be disappointed in the read. Nesbo has created a mini-Harry Hole (I really liked Bob) but gives Bob a bit more softness and accountability. I want to thank NetGalley and the publishers to allowing me to read this ARC. Highly recommend.

Five stars aren't enough. This is listed as "Nordic noir" and it truly is. Drunken cops, cops on the take, shady bars - everything that makes noir noir. A serial killer that is able to disappear into thin air while the police fight over who is the lead on the case. I received this advanced copy from Net Galley.

Written by Jo Nesbo this is a Borzoi Book published by Knopf, New York in February 2026 and Translated from the Norwegian by Robert Ferguson in 2025. This novel is a detective story set in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Holger Rudi is a Norwegian writer of true crime books. He arrives at the Minneapolis airport from Norway in September of 2022 so that he can perform research for a true crime book he is writing about a series of murders in that city in October of 2016. He arranges with the taxi driver, a man named Gabriel, who takes him from the airport to his hotel, to spend the next few days ferrying him around the city as Holger’s research continues. That research is presented to the readers as the contents of the researcher’s subjects’ minds in a series of flashbacks to 2016. The primary subjects include the killer and the detective who is trying to catch him. As the taxi proceeds around the city, it triggers more flashbacks. (This is an interesting writing technique used by this author. It is, however, little more than extraneous window dressing. The story becomes little different than the traditional all-knowing author-written fiction that we have been reading for so many years. It seems that Holger is able to enter the minds of almost everybody from six years earlier, including bartenders, members of the homicide unit, taxidermists, etc.) Taxidermy features greatly in this story.

The first victim of a murder attack is an African American black market gun dealer who buys and sells stolen guns of all kinds. He is a gang leader of the X-11 Gang. The gun used by the killer on the first victim is, in fact, sold to him by that very same victim, a man named Marco Dante. The gun is an M24 rifle, and the shooting is conducted by a shot from a sniper from a sixth-floor apartment across the street. The M24 rifle is the military and police sniper version of the Remington Model 700 bolt-action hunting rifle that was adopted by the military in 1988 and replaced by a semi-automatic rifle in 2014. It is no longer used by the military. The shooting takes place in a part of Minneapolis called Jordan that has been rebuilt, but the flashback is triggered by the taxi ride to the place where the attempted murder takes place. The would-be killer has made a windage mistake when shooting from six stories high to almost street-level, and Dante is wounded in the abdomen, but not killed outright. He is taken to hospital, where he is recovering after surgery.

One of the primary protagonists whose mind is entered by the researcher is Bob Oz, a Minneapolis Police Department homicide detective who has a lot of personal problems, including two ex-wives. His colleagues in the unit do not trust him because he refuses to carry a gun. He also likes to drink — a lot! Detective Bob Oz is eventually suspended by his boss for picking a fight with the husband of one of the women he has been sleeping with and beating him up badly. Oz has a lot of trouble with anger management. Still, he is making progress with the Dante murder attempt case and has identified the suspect. He has also found the taxidermist who was hired by the shooter to stuff and mount his pet cat. That taxidermist becomes an important figure in the story.

The wannabe killer is believed to be a man named Tomás Gomez. He calls himself “Lobo,” or “Wolf.” Lobo, also known as “The Uzi Man,” came to Minneapolis more than thirty years earlier, claiming to have a mission from the southern drug cartels to end the gang wars in that city. He has murdered several gang leaders and provoked several gang wars himself, but then he disappeared for more than thirty years. Now, it seems that he has reappeared and might have resumed his mission. A major gang leader who calls himself “Die Man.” recognizes that Lobo has returned and orders him killed. A man called “The Milkman” is assigned to do it.

This is an unedited copy, but I did find one inconsistency that I hope the editors catch before publication: When Tomás purchases his rifle, we are told that it came with a “holster.” Nope. Holsters are for handguns. A “gun case” would be used for a rifle. Holsters for rifles are generally referred to in America as “Scabbards” and are used with horses. It is unlikely that such a case might be seen in the upper Midwest. I’m guessing that this is a translation error.

The book is geographically correct for that part of Minnesota. More murders do, of course, take place, but they are all eventually solved. The pace is a bit slow at the beginning of the story, but it picks up quite a bit before it ends. All of the loose ends are tied up, and the conclusion of the book is not, IMO, foreseeable. I liked this book and do not hesitate to recommend it. This author has talent. I award all five of the five stars available for this novel.

Jo Nesbø’s Wolf Hour is a dark and beautifully layered thriller that proves once again why he stands among the best in the genre. Set between 2016 and 2022, the novel unfolds across the icy streets of Minneapolis. The story begins with the killing of a petty criminal, but soon unwinds into something much more haunting—a meditation on guilt, obsession, and the thin line between predator and prey.

The introduction of a Norwegian crime writer investigating the case years later adds a clever meta layer, blurring the line between truth and storytelling. As he digs deeper into the Gomez murders, the writer’s motives grow murky, forcing readers to question not only what happened but why anyone tells stories of violence in the first place.

Wolf Hour is bleak and mesmerizing, written with precision but also tenderness. The pacing is masterful, the tension relentless. Nesbø has crafted a novel that grips you by the throat yet makes you feel for everyone involved. It will be a long time before you forget them.

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