Review | Jo Nesbo gives Shakespeare’s Macbeth a Nordic-noir flourish, but fails to hit damned spot

Macbeth
by Jo Nesbo
Hogarth

3/5 stars

Jo Nesbo, the king of Nordic crime, has reworked one of Shakespeare’s darkest tragedies for his latest novel, Macbeth. The Norwegian writer’s books have sold more than 36 million copies, thanks, in no small part, to the popularity of the 11 bestselling thrillers starring alcoholic detective Harry Hole (featured in the disappointing 2017 Hollywood treatment of the story, The Snowman, starring Michael Fassbender), who battles his demons along with serial killers, disobeys his superiors’ orders and dispenses his own form of justice when it suits him.

So Nesbo is perhaps well placed to reimagine the story of another troubled man. “A main character who has the moral code and the corrupted mind, the personal strength and the emotional weakness, the ambition and the doubts to go either way [...] Macbeth does not feel too far from home,” he says on his website.

Nesbo describes his Macbeth as “a thriller about the struggle for power, set both in a gloomy, stormy crime noir-like setting and in a dark, paranoid human mind”. Unfortunately, his new take disappoints, as his story – just like Macbeth’s mind – unravels before the end.