Jo Nesbø's Detective Hole review: Nordic noir series plays the grim hits but fails to stand out

In the early 2010s, the entire world saw a Nordic noir boom, as the incredibly popular Scandinavian literary trend came to screens around the globe.

The distinctive traits of the crime fiction sub-genre are as follows - each entry into it tends to follow a morally complex, troubled protagonist, who has a distinct knack for solving crimes amid a Scandinavian backdrop. They are also known for their presentation of particularly brutal violence and for their bleak, dark tone.

With shows like The Killing and The Bridge dominating conversation, it wasn't long before America and the UK tried to get on board the trend. A US adaptation of one of Jo Nesbø's acclaimed Harry Hole books, The Snowman, was released in 2017 and was resoundingly panned.

Now, almost 10 years on, comes a second attempt to bring Harry, one of Nordic noir's most famous figures, to the screen. This time around, the adaptation is from Netflix, and they're going right back to the source.

A nine-part series, Detective Hole is a Norwegian series, which has been created by Nesbø himself. Naturally, hopes are high that this will be the adaptation which does the character, and the novels, justice.

Now, I'm in the position of not having read any of Nesbø's novels, so it's hard for me to say what the reaction will be from die-hard fans. However, from everything I do know, this is very much in keeping with the spirit of the novels, and is certainly a prime example of the Nordic noir genre on screen.

For many, that can only be a good thing. Unfortunately, it's also what stops the series from reaching beyond its literary and filmic inheritance.

To set the stage, this first season of Detective Hole is an adaptation, specifically of Nesbø's fifth novel in the Harry Hole series, The Devil's Star.

It follows Harry, played by Tobias Santelmann, a tormented recovering alcoholic who is an iconic figure in the Oslo police force - respected for his crime solving skills, but known for his difficult temperament.

One of the officers he works alongside is Tom Waaler. The duo are long-time adversaries, as Harry has always suspected Waaler's corruption, despite the fact that he's never been able to prove it.

Waaler has his own idea of justice, and as an investigation into a serial killer attacking women across the city kicks off, he and Harry will go head to head.

The first thing Detective Hole gets right is its central characters. The likes of Pia Tjelta and Ellen Helinder take on key roles ably, but in many ways this is a two-hander between Tobias Santelmann as Harry and Joel Kinnaman as Waaler.

Santelmann is perfectly cast as Harry, with a grizzled, tough exterior that makes him utterly believable as this determined man who has been beaten down by life, while also retaining a tenderness, particularly in scenes with his girlfriend Rakel and her son Oleg.

No matter how poorly he behaves or how one-track his mind is, he is always an empathetic character who you can't help but route for - in direct contrast to Waaler.

Speaking of Waaler, Kinnaman has never been better than he is here. A truly twisted, slimy and thrillingly complex figure, Waaler is the show's most interesting asset and the perfect foil for Harry in this first season. Kinnaman goes to some extreme places here, and it's never anything less than captivating to watch.

The battle between these two forces is easily the best aspect of the nine-part series, which also (of course) features an overarching serial killer storyline.

This storyline leans into everything you'd expect from this sort of series, and in doing so brings the tense, chilling atmosphere the genre is synonymous with, even if it is set during the sun-dappled height of summer.

The kills are numerous (seriously, there are a lot of murders) and they're all absolutely stomach churning. Your appreciation for the genre's excesses in that regard will be a good determination for how well you get on with Detective Hole.

The twists and turns are frequent, yet impressively the narrative is always relatively easy to follow and grab a hold of. It doesn't feel wilfully misleading, confusing and obtuse in the way some crime dramas revel in their complexities.

It also has to be said, that a reveal near the end of the series made me literally gasp out loud and sit up in my chair - always a good sign that a mystery has stuck the landing.

The most recent series this could be compared to is perhaps Dept. Q, Netflix's Edinburgh-based series, which itself was based on a Nordic noir book series by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen.

There are differences for sure - Dept. Q features far more comedy than Detective Hole, which has an almost pitch black tone the entire way through, and only glimmers of levity.

However, there are far more similarities here, from the maverick, socially difficult and troubled cop at the centre, dealing with a traumatic past mistake in a case, through to the dulled visual colour palette and the grimness of the subject matter.

The two series also share an unfortunately crucial flaw in that, at nine episodes a piece, they both run for far too long. Like Dept. Q's first season, this first run of Detective Hole stretches what feels like a perfect six-episode story into a nine-episode block, meaning the pacing often drags and beats repeat themselves.

This is no doubt a problem, but perhaps a bigger issue is the fact that the show never does anything which feels particularly new or innovative.

It might feel unfair to accuse Detective Hole of this - after all, the first of Nesbø's novels came out in 1997, at a time in which it probably did feel fresh, new and daring.

Even if the series were to have come out 15 years ago, or in place of the 2017 Michael Fassbender film, it may still have felt relevant and current. In today's environment, it feels like it's playing the beats of a well-worn genre.

It's doing them well, and fans will likely be delighted, but for everyone else, the series is likely to feel more like a overlong diversion, a crime drama which fills the time, but which in no way stands out from the ever-increasing crowd.

Detective Hole is coming to Netflix on Thursday 26 March 2026. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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