The Son

Title: The Son

Author: Jo Nesbo

A determined Sonny Lofthus, "the Son", is all set to get out and avenge the death of his father who was a policeman. Sounds a typical action-thriller? Really, but not really. The Son is gripping, and an unputdownable read, that takes you through an unnerving, action-packed ride, and keeps you on the edge. With a villain named "The Twin", and an unidentifiable police mole, the Son is rooted to the cause of ridding the world of characters detrimental to society. 

Nesbo's pace of the story is brilliant, and so is the suspense of the sequences in the novel. Half-way you think you know who the unidentified police mole is, and then you change, and then you change again, and then again, till  it catches you by surprise at the end of the novel!

I loved it. It was a proper thriller read. Nesbo's character development of Sonny is absolutely brilliant. It is almost like an antithesis developing between the characteristics of an empathetic Sonny and the Son. The story keeps you hooked, and feeds information about the characters drip by drip, making you stay and not wander off from the story. 

The narrative in the books shifts between the two main leads, Sonny about his mission, and Simon Kefas, the policeman attempting to track Sonny. The characters are real, with abundance of flaws and strengths. The shifting perspectives between the two main leads builds up a tension and thrill that lasts till the very end of the book. There are also a host of twists, turns and jumbles, taking the story into a complicated knot, but also neatly sorting them all out and leaving no knot undone at the end.

The book is an absorbing read, that will definitely make you indecisive on who to root for: the police, or the Son?