Nesbø realizes the importance of showing all the shading of a character he obviously feels strongly for, and that comes through in the poignant scenes between Harry and his lover’s (Pia Tjelta) son Oleg (Maxime Baune Bochud) who feels a strong connection to Harry. It is those decisions that elevate this series above traditional mystery fare and makes us hope that this team will reunite to adapt more of Nesbø’s addictive novels.

A roundhouse-kick of a thrill ride that lives up to the promises baked into the thriller subgenre's name, Jo Nesbø's Detective Hole delivers virtually everywhere it should — which is nothing less than what a modern legend deserves.

Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole isn’t reinventing the “troubled detective” or Nordic noir genres, but good performances by Santelmann and Kinnaman make the show very watchable.

The characterisation from Kinnaman and Santelmann is top notch, and the scenes between them are the best thing here, but there is a problem with the drama’s narrative flow.

“Detective Hole” exhibits the genre’s preferences for sadism, sensationalism and crescendoing gore over plausibility. And Hole himself is kind of a drag, a situation that Santelmann (Ragnar the Younger in “The Last Kingdom”) doesn’t do much to alleviate. But the show is conspicuously polished and nice to look at.

After delivering a compelling hook in its opening chapter and leaving viewers with engaging cliffhangers in the first few episodes, the Netflix crime thriller becomes a little too redundant.

The twists and turns are frequent, yet impressively the narrative is always relatively easy to follow and grab a hold of. .... The pacing often drags and beats repeat themselves.