Jo Nesbø

Jo Nesbø (born March 29, 1960, Oslo, Norway) is a Norwegian writer and musician, best known internationally for a series of crime novels featuring hard-boiled detective Harry Hole (pronounced Hoo-la in Norwegian).

Education and early career

Nesbø grew up in Molde, western Norway. While in school, he also played guitar and sang in a pop-rock band. He graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics (Norges Handelshøyskole) in Bergen with a degree in economics. After graduating, he took a job as a stockbroker while maintaining a vision of himself as a singer-songwriter. In 1992 he helped start a band named Di Derre, which recorded several albums.

Harry Hole books

Working at a stressful day job and performing with his increasingly popular band at night eventually took its toll on Nesbø. When someone made a casual suggestion that he write a book about traveling with the band, he took it as a challenge, asked for six months off, went to Australia, and returned with what would become his first Harry Hole novel. That book, titled Flaggermusmannen (1997; “Bat Man”; Eng. trans. The Bat), follows Hole, a recovering alcoholic, to Australia for a murder investigation.

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Nesbø’s second Hole novel, Kakerlakkene (1998; “Cockroaches”; The Cockroaches), takes the detective through the seamy underworld of Bangkok. Rødstrupe (2000; “Robin”; The Redbreast) details the role of fascism in Norway. In Sorgenfri (2002; “Sorrow-Free”; Nemesis) Hole investigates a bank robbery and is implicated in the death of a former girlfriend. A serial killer is at work in Marekors (2003; “Pentagram”; The Devil’s Star), this time in Oslo. Hole tracks a contract killer in Frelseren (2005; “Savior”; The Redeemer) and another serial killer in Snømannen (2007; The Snowman). Panserhjerte (2009; “Armored Heart”; The Leopard) has Hole tracked down in Hong Kong and persuaded to reengage in police work. Gjenferd (2011; “Ghost”; Phantom) treats the drug scene in Oslo and examines Hole’s experience of fatherhood, and Politi (2013; Police) continues the story begun in Phantom. In Tørst (2017; The Thirst) Hole hunts for a killer who finds his victims on Tinder, a dating app. The 12th Hole book, Kniv (Knife), was published in 2019. It was followed in 2023 by Blodmåne (“Blood Moon”;Killing Moon), in which Hole tracks a serial killer who targets young women in Oslo.

Nesbø’s Hole series proved to be extremely popular and was translated into many languages. Its popularity was in part because of tight plotting and in part because of Nesbø’s method of presenting his main character. Throughout the series, Hole battles his demons, sometimes successfully but more often not. Each successive volume deepens the reader’s experience with Hole and his life on the edge. Furthermore, the later books refer to incidents in the earlier books, another effect that adds dimension to Hole’s deeply flawed but essentially sympathetic personality.

A Netflix series, Jo Nesbo’s Detective Hole, premiered in March 2026. Meanwhile, Nesbø planned to release the 14th Harry Hole book in November 2026.

Other works

Nesbø’s long essay “Stemmer fra Balkan” (“Figures in the Balkans”) was published in 1999 with another long essay by Espen Søbye, about the authors’ trip to Serbia and Norway’s role in the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

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Nesbø also produced several stand-alone books, including the novella Det hvite hotellet (2007; “The White Hotel”) and the novels Hodejegerne (2009; Headhunters; film 2011), Sønnen (2014; The Son), and Kongeriket (2020; The Kingdom). Blod på snø (2015; Blood on Snow) and Mere blod (2015; Midnight Sun) are linked crime thrillers set in 1970s Norway. Macbeth (2018), a retelling of Shakespeare’s classic play, was written for the Hogarth Shakespeare series. In Natthuset (2023; The Night House) Nesbø adapts classic horror film tropes to the page, in a story about a teenage outcast who tries to convince the people in his small town that a haunted telephone booth is responsible for his friend’s disappearance.

In 2025 he published Minnesota (published in English as Wolf Hour), which centers on a Norwegian American detective’s investigation of serial murders in Minneapolis.

In addition, Nesbø has published a book of short stories, Karusellmusikk (2001; “Carousel Music”), and a number of children’s books, including a series of books featuring Doktor Proktor and his Fart Powder.