Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole; Boom Box: Beats and Betrayal

“What would it be like, to be inside the mind of a bestselling author — to see their characters and their settings with all the added detail of their creator’s imagination? The dark and violent Scandi crime drama Harry Hole offers exactly that. Jo Nesbo, the Norwegian superstar novelist, has adapted his mega-selling series of thrillers about an Oslo policeman… and lost none of the sordid, brutish atmosphere of the original stories. We meet his long-suffering colleagues face to face, and his girlfriend Rakel with her troubled son, Oleg. We get to look into the eyes of Harry’s nemesis, the narcissistic psychopath Tom Waaler. And the result is oddly disappointing. The pictures on the screen add little to the pictures Nesbo has already conjured on the page.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Are you ready for another maverick detective with a drink problem and a tortured past? Then settle down to Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole (Netflix), in which hardboiled Norwegian Harry Hole investigates a series of gruesome killings. It’s a brooding thriller based on Nesbø’s fifth book in the series, The Devil’s Star. The author has written the TV adaptation himself, so the result is true to his vision and will satisfy fans, particularly those dismayed by the 2017 Michael Fassbender film version that bombed at the box office. The genre is “Nordic noir”, but this is up-ended from the start when we’re informed that Oslo is in the grip of a heatwave. This goes some way to explaining why Harry Hole (pronounced hoo-leh, although I bet no one in Britain will say the show’s title in that way) frequently has his shirt off, even when sitting in the office viewing CCTV. Either that or the director thinks that audiences will appreciate shirtless shots of the handsome actor Tobias Santelmann, who has something of Jason Statham about him, especially when he’s doing things like hanging onto the outside of a moving car.”
Anita Singh, Telegraph

“he UK launch of HBO Max has brought with it some major US series (no more waiting for The Pitt!). More unexpectedly, perhaps, its launch slate also includes this distinctly British true-crime docudrama about a record shop/recording studio in Edmonton, north London. Teens involved in petty crime came to Boom Box to keep off the streets – only to find that the studio itself was a hotbed of gang-related activity. It’s an astonishing tale which is told totally fantastically here, in a series that hopefully heralds HBO Max as a platform that will champion British (as well as American) TV.”
Hannah J Davies, The Guardian