Headhunters: ‘Keeps the twists and shocks coming hard and fast’ Metro

Product Information

Roger does have a lucrative sideline: he organizes the theft and re-sale of fancy works of art -- taking advantage of his headhunting-position to learn about the valuable art candidates might have hanging in their homes. The cinema, as Karl Marx might have said, repeats itself, first as a Scandinavian thriller, then as a Hollywood remake. An American company acquired the rights to remake Morten Tyldum's Headhunters while it was still in production. They'll have trouble in making a movie half as good or half as authentic. Roger is devoted to his wife, too -- relatively faithful (with one brief slip), and willing to do anything to make her happy, including paying for a lifestyle -- fancy house, fancy art gallery for Diana to run -- that is way beyond his pay grade. And then there is his wife, Diana -- who is way out of his league but apparently truly loves him (even though she desperately wants kids and Roger pressured her into getting an abortion when she got pregnant). It's a pretty good scam he has going -- but that and his whole world threaten to unravel when he is tempted by a really big score, an authentic Rubens.

Jo Nesbo - Book Series In Order Jo Nesbo - Book Series In Order

Still, one has to hand it to Nesbø: all the pieces -- and the various clues strewn through the story -- eventually fall into neat (if still often very unlikely) place.

Publication Order of Hogarth Shakespeare Books

verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ During the opening credits, Roger's no-nonsense voiceover explains the five rules of art theft. He then proceeds with a poised wit to demonstrate his manipulative gifts by bending a client to his will while extracting the information he needs to steal a valuable lithograph of Edvard Munch's The Brooch. Roger is not particularly likable and his vicious world of international commerce is unattractive, though it glitters in a Mad Men way. He is more like Patricia Highsmith's psychopathic antihero Tom Ripley than Raffles, EW Hornung's gentleman thief. However, a malevolent fate comes up the Kattegat in the form of Clas Greve (leading Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to pursue the complacent, hubristic antihero.

Jo Nesbo You Should Definitely Read - Penguin 8 Books by Jo Nesbo You Should Definitely Read - Penguin

Greve is a handsome, wealthy, charismatic son of a Dutch father and a Norwegian mother, apparently between jobs, having recently worked for a major military contractor. Roger seeks him out for Pathfinder, a conglomerate run from Oslo, and sees him as a target for theft as he secretly owns a valuable Rubens that apparently came into the family's hands by way of Nazi confiscation during the second world war. And Nesbø also proves himself a master manipulator, with some very nice twists, which allow him to bring the story to a surprisingly satisfying (if a bit too good to be true) conclusion.

More about Jo Nesbo

The Rubens belongs to Clas Greve, and that's not all Greve has to offer: the former CEO of a GPS technology company that was recently bought out, he is the perfect candidate to head up Pathfinder, who are searching for a new man to run the company; if Roger can land this scalp he'll really have it made.