A Norwegian, an Australian aborigine, and a clown walk into a bar . . .

If you're looking for a crime thriller with a double layer of exotic unfamiliarity, check out Jo Nesbø's first Harry Hole novel The Bat.

Nesbø is a Norwegian author, but he has Harry Hole travel to Australia to investigate a murder. So you see the country as both a tourist and a detective. Harry's "tour guide" from the Sydney police force is Andrew Kensington-- an aborigine-- so that adds another layer of alienation to the narrative. Throw in Sydney's wild gay scene, a salacious circus, a dismembered cross-dressing clown, rednecks in the outback, the illegal drug trade, dangerous creatures, indigenous mythology, Northern Europeans in a faraway land, a serial killer and you've got quite a vivid collage.

On the one hand, Harry Hole is the classic detective with a tortured past . . . but in this first Hole novel, Nesbø revises this trope, and Hole becomes a detective with a tortured present. He falls off the wagon during the investigation-- and you'll learn why that is NOT a good thing-- and he has to confront his past and dark and ugly ways.

Ten box jellyfish out of ten.