Legendary author Jo Nesbø talks running Detective Hole show, his own brushes with the law, and why Harry Hole is his soulmate

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

Two counts of bank robbery and one of indecent exposure – it’s fair to say that Jo Nesbø has come closer to his subject than most crime authors.

“I was arrested in Oslo,” says the writer behind 13 Harry Hole novels and now a blockbuster adaptation on Netflix. “The police car drove up on the pavement in front of me, the cops jumped out and it was, ‘Turn your back! Hands on the wall!’ There had been a bank robbery just a few blocks away, and I was wearing the same clothes as the suspect. Weirdly, the same thing happened to me in Brazil, too.”

There was no mistaken identity in the indecent exposure case: “I was 18, I was drunk, I mooned a police car… I spent a few hours in jail.” But the remarkable thing about Nesbø’s criminal past is that it’s not even the most interesting thing in his backstory.

As well as selling more than 60 million books, the 65-year-old Norwegian has been a professional footballer (striker for Molde FK), the lead singer in a successful band (Di Derre) and an elite-level rock climber (completing his first officially pro-grade ascent at the age of 59), and is now, with Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole debuting this week, a show-runner. “That opportunity came quite late in life,” he shrugs, almost apologetically, “and I just wanted to be part of something big like that. If it had been a movie, I wouldn’t have got involved, but because it was a TV series I said yes.”

When I ask him why the different responses, he says something about the source novel feeling “more like a 10-hour story than a two-hour one”, but I wonder if actually it might have something to do with his previous experience at the hands of Hollywood. The Snowman (also a Harry Hole mystery), starring Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson, hit cinemas in 2017 and received a frosty response from both critics and audiences. “I saw an early cut, so I knew approximately where it was headed,” sighs Nesbø, “and I knew that it probably wasn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea.”

Smart cookie that he is (did I mention that he has also been a journalist and an economist?), he worked out “that I’m going to be asked, for the next year, ‘What did you think about the movie?’ So I decided, OK, maybe I shouldn’t see the movie so that I don’t have to tell anybody whether I liked it or not. I went climbing instead of going to the premiere.”

As show-runner on the Netflix series, however, he’s in charge – and taking no prisoners. “If you ask my bandmates,” he admits, “I’m probably a control freak and used to getting my way. So I’m open to the fact that almost every person on the crew of this show is better at their job than I would be, and eight out of 10 times are bringing something to the table that is better than what I had written or thought of myself.

“But there are those last two times out of 10 when an actor or director or costume designer brings something to the table that doesn’t belong there…” And then he puts his arm around their shoulder and tells them so? “Yes. Except for the arm around the shoulder.” Even when it’s, say, Nick Cave, who provides the show’s music? “Actually he was very nice and very accommodating.” And his own band, Di Derre, didn’t demand the gig? “They asked me several times. I said ‘That’s not going to happen.’”

He may be revelling in the control this time round, but the power hasn’t turned his head. He insists he has no plans to muscle in on upcoming screen adaptations of his stories, which include Blood on Snow, with Benedict Cumberbatch, and London, starring Oscar Isaac and directed by Ben Stiller. “Ben Stiller can absolutely sleep easy in his bed,” says Nesbø.

However, Stiller might still have the odd wakeful night once he sees how high the bar has been set with Detective Hole. On a case that pits the hero up against a corrupt police officer within his own department, the twists keep coming and the tension never lets up. “Harry is a really intense guy,” explains his creator. “He’s the kind of guy who, after you’ve spent a weekend with him, you don’t call him back on Monday. You wait a month.”

Troublingly, Nesbø also describes the alcoholic Harry as his soul mate: “When you’re writing about a character for that many years [the first novel appeared in 1997], it’s unavoidable that you put yourself into that character, that you’ll like to spend time with someone you understand and share things with, like basic values, taste in music and film, sense of humour. So you’ve created a person that you don’t necessarily think is the greatest guy in the world, but they’re interesting to spend time with. And if you have any insight into your own personality, you will know that you are not the greatest guy in the world either. So maybe that makes you soul mates.”

“I don’t have demons the way Harry has. Harry’s drawn to the abyss much more than I am. Also I don’t know addiction the way he does. But we all have some kind of addiction.” I ask Nesbø what his is, but he uses his right to remain silent. “I don’t have to answer that,” he says – and doesn’t.

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