THE KINGDOM is a somewhat different book for Jo Nesbø. It is a stand-alone novel that has many more slow-boil elements than any of the entries in his Harry Hole series. However, those who have followed Nesbø from the beginning or arrived as latecomers to his work will find much to love here.

Roy and Carl Opgard grew up on a non-working family farm on a mountaintop just above Os, a tiny town in Norway. This is one of those places where everyone knows everyone else, as well as most of their business. Roy, the elder of the two and the narrator of the piece, has lived there his entire life, tending the farm that he and Carl inherited and operating a gas station that somehow manages to show a profit despite being off the beaten path. Carl put his hometown in the rearview mirror as soon as he was able to do so, attending college in Minnesota and eventually settling in Canada. So it is quite a shock when, without an immediately apparent reason, he comes back to Os with his wife, Shannon, after being away for 15 years.

"No one who reads THE KINGDOM will ever forget it or its author, who deserves a place at the summit of the must-read list of anyone who enjoys dark quality literature."

Carl’s return causes quite a stir in the town, especially with two ghosts of his Christmas past: Grete Smitt, who wanted her long-ago one-night stand with Carl to be something more, and Mari Aas, who was Carl’s steady girlfriend until she was not. That aside, Carl’s reason for returning home becomes clear rather quickly. He has an idea for developing the family farm into a large hotel resort and spa. Roy thinks that the artistic rendition of the project looks like an igloo on the moon, but he reluctantly finds himself --- as does most of Os --- sucked into the gravity of Carl’s incessant enthusiasm.

Actually, readers are tugged in as well, with no hope of escaping before the conclusion. One reason for this is a mystery that concerns the apparently accidental deaths of Carl and Roy’s parents, a mystery that spills out across the story in drips and drops, increasing the tension for the brothers. Another reason is Kurt Olsen, the local sheriff, whose father (the former sheriff) disappeared years before. Olsen is determined to fully investigate their deaths and is more inclined to do so since Carl has returned. Roy suspects that Olsen is even more obsessed with the disappearance of his father, which also seems to involve himself and Carl.

Meanwhile, Roy is drawn toward Shannon in spite of himself, a state of affairs that she seems to cultivate. THE KINGDOM intermittently bounces back and forth between the past and present, so while the plot that runs through the book is deceptively straightforward, every page or two contains a small revelation or surprise that intersects with others. This creates a tangle of intricate branches that cause the players to be revealed as much more complicated than they would seem. Just about every single person here is guilty of something, and you won’t want to become too attached to any particular character.

I thought that I had the ending figured out on multiple occasions and was wrong every time. Whatever disappointment I initially experienced upon learning that this was not a Harry Hole novel evaporated within the first few pages and never reappeared. No one who reads THE KINGDOM will ever forget it or its author, who deserves a place at the summit of the must-read list of anyone who enjoys dark quality literature. I also would be remiss if I did not offer a tip of the fedora to Robert Ferguson for his fine and nuanced translation, which picks up on Nesbø’s wondrous turns of phrase and gifts them to his English-speaking readers.