The Leopard
Jo Nesbø
 Following the traumatic events of the previous novel, the world-weary detective Harry Hole has gone on a kind of self-imposed exile from Norway and disappeared. Because of a series of murders by a potential serial killer in Oslo leave the police baffled and call for Hole's special talents, a search is launched and he is eventually found by a new Crime Squad officer, Kaja Solness, in Hong Kong, where he has become addicted to opium. After failing to convince Harry to return to Norway by describing the identical murder of two women, Solness informs him that his father is seriously ill in the Rikshospitalet and will not live much longer. This convinces Harry to return to Norway with Solness. Harry returns to Crime Squad to find that it is in a political tussle with the National Criminal Investigation Service (Kripos). The power-hungry head of Kripos, Mikael Bellman, seeks to build his own power by gaining a monopoly on all murder investigations in Norway and is at odds with Harry's own supervisor. Much of the book's plot is concerned with this no-holds-barred power struggle, with rival detectives conducting surveillance on each other and resorting to constant intrigue, blackmail and the planting of spies and "moles" in the rival department. From the very moment of landing in Norway, Harry finds himself the target of Bellman's hostility - though the head of Kripos is not averse to obtaining the results of Harry's detection and taking credit for them. To begin with, Harry is reluctant to become involved in the murder investigation, but when a female Norwegian MP is murdered in a public park, he is drawn into the case. The third murder initially seems unrelated to the previous two. The previous victims had been found with 24 small incisions emanating from the mouth, but the actual cause of death was by drowning in their own blood from those wounds, whereas the MP was found having been hanged, though the fall had been considerable and she had been decapitated by the rope. Harry, Solness and one of Harry's former colleagues at Crime Squad start trying to find the killer - working under cover as officially the case had been given to Kripos. While working together, Harry and Kaja are increasingly drawn to each other. Like himself, Kaja turns out to be haunted by traumatic memories and ghosts of the past, and her past personal entanglements impact her professional life - which leads to a big confrontation between the two of them, and then to a reconciliation and a tempestuous love affair. In the investigation, they meanwhile discover that all three murdered women had been at the same ski lodge some time previously all on the same night. Harry deduces that the murders are part of the killer's attempts to cover up his (or her) trail. Suspicion initially falls on a man known to have been at the ski lodge at the time, but he is eliminated from the enquiry when he also is found murdered having been super glued to his bath and then slowly drowned, returning to the killer's previous style of murder. Forcing Bellman to include him in the Kripos team - though there is no love lost between the two of them - Harry finds another person who had been at the ski lodge at the time and who is now in Australia. She refuses to be bait for the killer, but Harry and Solness instigate a sting operation to draw out the killer. But this fails and almost costs them their lives when the killer outsamrts them, and instead of coming near the hut starts an avalanche which covers and very nearly kills them. Harry finally determines that the murderer is someone that he knows and who has become close to him, following a discussion with The Snowman from his previous case. He realises who he believes to be responsible and has him arrested. Unfortunately, Harry's instincts have proved wrong and the real killer is discovered to have fled to the Congo. Harry and Solness follow them and Harry is kidnapped by associates of the killer. He manages to escape, but Solness has been captured herself. Harry follows the clues given by one of the killer's associates and finally confronts and kills the murderer at the lip of a live volcano. Following the death of his father, Harry spots his former partner, Rakel, and her son, Oleg, at the funeral and manages to confirm that they are alive and happy away from Norway - having fled following the events of The Snowman murders. Though it is but a fleeting meeting, it re-confirms that Rakel is the one great love of Harry's life and that no other woman can truly replace her. Therefore, Kaja's deep love for Harry and her aspiration to build a life together with him is doomed to failure and heartbreak. The poignant farewell scene is reminiscent of the similar scene at the end of The Redeemer, where Harry cut off a budding affair with Martine, the Salvation Army woman with whom he got involved in that book. Harry himself returns to see The Snowman, who is gravely ill and who feels some remorse at what he had done. It is tacitly suggested that Harry helps The Snowman to commit suicide, which Harry feels is payment for having failed to follow his father's previous request for him to perform euthanasia. By the end of the novel, Harry has gotten many new traumatic memories and haunting "ghosts" - having been very near death several times, mutilating his own face to get free of the killer's fiendish trap, shooting an African mercenary who turned out to be a young boy... Moreover, he had twice saved Kaja's life by ruthlessly sacrificing somebody else - during the avalanche he had given priority to resuscitating her while another police officer suffocated to death, and at the final showdown in Africa he had shot down the murderer at an angle where the heavy bullet missed Kaja but killed in passing another woman who was held hostage. Though not facing any charges, Harry is well aware of what he did - and determined to go back to Hong Kong, for good this time.