From one of the most celebrated crime writers in Europe comes an epic new novel, brilliant in scope and design—a deep and fearless investigation of betrayal spanning two centuries and three continents. Police Detective Harry Hole has made a terrible mistake. An embarrassment in the line of duty has pulled him off his usual beat. Reassigned to mundane surveillance tasks, he reluctantly agrees to monitor neo-Nazi activities in Oslo. But as Hole is drawn into an underground world of illegal gun trafficking, brutal beatings, and sexual extortions, he soon learns that he must act fast to prevent an international conspiracy from unfolding. Trapped in the crosshairs of the man with all the answers, Harry Hole plunges headlong into a mystery with roots deep in the past. His investigation takes him back to Norway's darkest hour—when members of the young nation's government collaborated with leaders of Nazi Germany. Dredging up a painful history of denial, Hole turns his attention to the Norwegian troops who fought for Adolf Hitler on the Eastern front. Branded by their countrymen as traitors, the soldiers who survived the brutal Russian winter—the hunger, fear, cold, grenades, and snipers—returned home as scapegoats of a nation's atonement. Sixty years later, old grudges and betrayals appear to have been laid to rest, until Hole realizes that someone has begun to pick off the surviving soldiers one by one. With only his troubled, guilt-ridden conscience as a guide, Hole must move quickly through the traps and mirrors of a twisted criminal mind. But as his sanity slips in a slow burn of anger and alcohol, his mistakes continue to pile up. And if he fails to quicken the pace, Norway's darkest hour since World War II just might lie in the future. In a tightly woven plot that takes readers from the icy steppes of the Russian front to a seemingly peaceful springtime in modern-day Oslo, Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø delves into a sinister national history with uncommon bravery. Transforming shades of moral gray into an explosive palette of characters, Nesbø holds readers in suspense until the final pages. His deft orchestration of parallel narratives knows no match in the genre, and his thematic reach exceeds even the most ambitious thrillers on the market. With the U.S. publication of The Redbreast , American readers will learn what European readers have known for a decade—that Nesbø's writing is "quite simply brilliant" ( Weekend-Avisen , Denmark).

尤•奈斯博，風靡世界的挪威作傢，北歐犯罪小說天王，每一部作品都登上挪威圖書暢銷排行榜。他拿過北歐幾乎所有的犯罪小說大奬，包括玻璃鑰匙奬、書店業者大奬等，還獲得英國匕首奬和美國愛倫•坡奬提名，作品被翻譯成40種語言，在50多個國傢齣版，銷量突破3300萬冊。

奈斯博曾是挪威知名的搖滾明星，白天任職於金融業，利用晚上和周末時間演齣。不久，他考得金融分析師執照，被挪威知名證券公司高薪挖走。然而工作和樂團越來越難以兼顧，瀕臨崩潰的奈斯博決定休半年長假。他帶著筆記本電腦，跳上飛機，前往澳大利亞，在那裏寫下瞭日後讓自己聲名大噪的“哈利•霍勒警探”係列的第一部。

奈斯博受到英美犯罪小說名傢一緻擁戴，邁剋爾•康奈利稱贊他是“我至愛的驚悚作傢”。評論傢普遍認為，奈斯博可與丹尼斯•勒翰、詹姆斯•艾爾羅伊、邁剋爾•康奈利、伊恩•蘭金、雷濛德•錢德勒等名傢相提並論，稱他是“挪威犯罪書寫的畢加索”；德國《明鏡》周刊則贊他為“斯堪的納維亞的奇跡”。他的讀者族群廣泛，涵蓋純文學、冷硬推理、黑色小說以及通俗驚悚小說愛好者。