Harry is hell bent and readers love going along for the ride
Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo, whose Harry Hole series has sold more than 11 million copies worldwide, talks to Bron Sibree
How do you explain the astonishing success of Harry Hole?
Honestly I have no idea and I'm not sure whether I want to analyse it. I think that the risk is that you'd become self-conscious about what you're doing, or might start focusing on 'Okay, what is the formula here?' I have to stay truthful to the storyline and to the logic of the characters, and that means sometimes disappointing the readers. But I think the interesting thing about Harry Hole as a character is that you can't trust him. Morally, one day he will do the right thing and the next day he won't. And in the end, that is probably the main theme of any story, not whether the main character is going to survive physically, but whether he is going to do the right thing.
How did you make the transition from being a pop star and successful stockbroker to the creator of the Harry Hole series?
I told my band (Di Derre) and my boss that I needed six months off. Then I hopped on a plane to Australia, to get as far from Norway as I could. I came up with a plot on the flight to Sydney and then I checked into a hotel. It was the middle of the night, but I was jetlagged and couldn't sleep, so I just started writing about this guy called Harry arriving in Sydney and checking into the same hotel. My goal was to try to learn how to write a novel and then send it to a couple of publishing houses and hope to get some positive reactions and then write real literature. But that first novel won two awards. It was named the best Norwegian and the best Scandinavian crime novel of the year. It was more successful with the critics than with the audience. So for a time I was this sort of award-winning - but not too well-selling - writer. After my third novel, Redbreast, things changed. The audience warmed up to Harry.
Your new novel, Phantom, which releases this month, is the eighth featuring the brilliant, troubled, alcoholic Oslo detective. How has the series developed?
