Jo Nesbo places Macbeth in the 1970s in a run-down, rainy, industrial town that's fighting endemic corruption and drugs - very well done but rather depressing.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I've read most of the Hogarth Shakespeare series and so far, they've been a bit of a mixed bag for me. This one is currently sitting right in the middle. This was my first Jo Nesbo book and I was really excited to see what he'd do with Macbeth. I think he did a really good job with how he positioned it, modernized it, and gave it a bit of that very important supernatural edge. What kept it from being 4 stars for me was that I felt it was a bit too drawn out and I wasn't completely sucked into the story.
If you enjoyed Macbeth in highschool, give this version a go. I'm also curious about this author's other books (I hear they're great) so I'm definitely going to read one or 2 in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the opportunity to read this book in return for my honest opinion.

This was Jo Nesbo's contribution to the Hogarth Shakespeare Project, a re-imagining of Shakespeare's plays set in modern day. I loved Macbeth and have watched many versions of the play in movie format, but had never read a different version of the play. This was great, the characters as always were ruthless and deadly. I did find it a little slow to get into and there were a lot of villains but it was a great version of the play. I love Jo Nesbo's books and this was a good read.

DNF'd. Maybe for some people but not for me. I hate DNFing books but this just didn't hook me in. But thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to try this book.

I am such a huge fan of Shakespeare and these modern retellings, so when I found out this book was available for request on NetGalley, I hoped and prayed that I would get approved (which I did).

“Macbeth” is probably one of the plays that just sticks in your mind, no matter how much time passes since the first time you read it. I was surprised to see how close Jo Nesbo stayed with the true play, and it was really executed perfectly. I couldn’t have thought of a better author to write this. From the beginning to end, I was drawn in completely. If you’ve already read the original, you know how it’s going to turn out. You can even just SparkNote it. But that doesn’t mean anything here, because the reader is entirely engrossed with Inspector Macbeth, and his hunger for something bigger than him. I am such a huge fan of Jo Nesbo, I think he’s an amazing crime writer, and his retelling of Macbeth proves my point.

I really did feel at times that I was reading a Jo Nesbo book, and not a book based on a Shakespeare play. I loved how he modernized the story, and wrote in gangs and mafia-esque values. That was so cool. His writing style and ability to bring the story to life through his writing sets him apart from all the other Shakespeare retellings I’ve read so far (Hag-seed, Rose & Poe).

This is the latest of the Hogarth Shakespeare series which has contemporary authors retelling the Bard’s plays. I’ve read all of Nesbø’s Harry Hole novels, and in my 30-year career as an English teacher, I taught Macbeth numerous times. My conclusion: pairing Jo Nesbø with Shakespeare’s Macbeth was an inspired choice.

Nesbø sets his crime novel in the 1970s in an economically depressed, deindustrialized town. Macbeth is the head of the SWAT team; he answers to Duncan, the newly appointed police commissioner. Other members of the police force include Banquo, another member of the SWAT team; Inspector Duff, head of the Narcotics Unit; and Caithness, head of the Forensics Unit. Duncan is trying to clean up the corruption that has been rampant in the force and to take down Hecate, the local drug kingpin. Macbeth’s lover is Lady, a local casino magnate; she helps convince Macbeth that he should kill Duncan and become the chief commissioner himself. Anyone familiar with Shakespeare’s tragedy will be familiar with the rest of the plot to which this novel remains fairly faithful.

It is obvious that Nesbø has studied the play quite closely. For example, in his version, he incorporates Shakespeare’s clothing imagery (an ambitious man’s shoes always creak “because he always buys shoes too big for him” and Macbeth’s new uniform “rubbed against his skin and gave him the shivers”), animal imagery (Lady’s “pupils twitch, and this reminded him of something. Frogspawn. A tadpole trying to break free from a sticky egg”), and blood imagery (Lady has “full red lips” and “flame-red hair” and “long red nails” and favours red wine and red dresses). Like Shakespeare, Nesbø uses dramatic irony: Macbeth says, “You’ll be the death of me, Lady, do you know that?” Pathetic fallacy is used: it is almost always overcast and raining and sometimes the weather is described as “hellish.” Even soliloquies are adapted; Shakespeare’s Macbeth describes life as “a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing” (V, v, 26-28) and Nesbø’s Macbeth says, “Perhaps we’re just detached sentences in an eternal chaotic babble in which everyone talks and no one listens, and our worst premonition finally turns out to be correct: you are alone. All alone.”

What is largely missing is the comic relief found in Shakespeare’s play, though there is a nod to the Porter’s speech about alcohol causing “a colourful nose, sleep and pissing” and a humourous nod to Shakespeare’s dramas in the description of “the expensive national theatre with its pompous plays, incomprehensible dialogue and megalomaniac kings who die in the last act”. Nesbø’s Macbeth is a dark, brutal and bloody saga.

I appreciated that Nesbø tried to explain some ambiguous statements found in the play. For instance, Lady Macbeth tells her husband, “I have given suck, and know/How tender ‘tis to love the babe that milks me;/ I would, while it was smiling in my face,/ Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums/ And dashed the brains out” (I, v, 55-59). Nesbø gives an explanation for this child. He also examines Lady’s background which helps explain her ambitions for herself and her consort.

There are some missteps, however. “Brew” is a powerful drug prepared in a large container by Strega (the Italian word for witch) and her two sisters, too obviously evoking the three Weird Sisters and a cauldron. Later, Macbeth is introduced to an even more potent drug than Brew which Hecate calls “Power.” This metaphor is a tad heavy-handed. Accepting that Macbeth would bring home that shoebox and what it contains requires too much suspension of disbelief. And though Shakespeare does perhaps suggest a Satanic element to the character of Seyton, Nesbø’s portrayal is over the top.

It is the portrayal of Duff which is outstanding. In Shakespeare’s play, MacDuff is an upright man who acts mostly in the background. In Nesbø’s prose version, Duff is more morally ambiguous. He too is ambitious and has a desire for recognition. He is also described as a “selfish, arrogant bastard” and “the most selfish person I’ve ever met.” He dominates in several scenes; there is even an extended section showing his escape after the slaughter of his family, a massacre made even more poignant because of its timing. Duff ends up serving as Macbeth’s foil: as Macbeth devolves, Duff evolves.

This novel can be read without the reader having any knowledge of Shakespeare’s play, but a familiarity with the drama will increase the reader’s appreciation of what Nesbø has accomplished. He has touched on all the major themes found in the Bard’s work, and even though I knew what was going to happen, I still found the book a compelling read.

There have been many film adaptations of Shakespeare’s Macbeth; I can well imagine a film version of Nesbø’s novel which is an excellent example of the crime noir genre.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

When I was in high school, I was that weird girl in your english lit class who actually liked Shakespeare. The Hogarth Shakespeare project gave 8 authors a chance to recreate one of the Bard’s classic plays & when I heard Jo Nesbo was taking on MacBeth, I had to read it. And he’s done a remarkable job.

It’s a daunting challenge. After all, we already know who did what & how it ends. But Nesbo has given it a modern facelift by turning it into a dark, violent tale of cops vs criminals set in an unnamed city drowning in drugs & corruption. Poor old Duncan is the shiny new Chief Commissioner of police while MacBeth heads up the SWAT team. Other familiar names have been assigned to characters on both sides of the law, their roles staying true to the originals.

I won’t dwell on the story except to say this is decidedly bloodier than “the Scottish play”. But there are several things that make it work. First, the setting. Nesbo vividly describes his city & it’s a pretty bleak place. Relentless rain, dark streets full of skeletal junkies & rusted out factories litter the landscape. Now add in cops & politicians who have been bought & paid for by the rival drug gangs that rule the city. The result is a grim & gripping read that practically oozes moral decay.

And that of course is the point. Shakespeare wanted to shine a light on the psychological & physical ramifications for those who seek power for power’s sake, how ambition without morality leads to carnage. He also distinguished between the sexes. Not that women can’t be just as reprehensible. It’s just their methods that differ. In this story, MacBeth’s wife may not care to actually get her hands dirty but she’s more than capable of inciting violence with well chosen words whispered in the right ears.

Nesbo has nailed the themes & even sneaks in symbolic moments such as blood that won’t wash off. What I found most startling is how relevant something written over 400 years ago still is. But then all you have to do is read the news to find modern examples of his characters. It’s not an easy read but Nesbo pulls it off with style. My only criticism are the lengthy descriptive passages that result in the book weighing in at over 500 pages.

As always, the wonderful Don Bartlett has done an outstanding job of translation. Recommended for fans of Shakespeare and/or gritty crime drama. If you’re keeping track of this series, next up is Gillian Flynn of “Gone Girl” fame taking on “Hamlet”.

In this latest addition to the Hogarth Shakespeare series, Jo Nesbo reimagines Macbeth as an urban drug war with Duncan the Police Chief Commissioner out to clean the city and Macbeth the SWAT Team leader gunning for his job. The result is a fast-paced, gritty thriller that feels real, emotionally complex, and contemporary. 

Nesbo replaces the three witches and their prophecies of Macbeth's future with gang members reporting to Hecate, a drug lord who controls the city and some of its most powerful residents with his potent cocktail called 'brew'. What fate appears to have decreed in Shakespeare's original, Hecate orchestrates in Nesbo's novel, seeing in Macbeth an opportunity to redirect the police force's focus to a rival drug lord who specializes in heroin and in turn maintain his own hold on the city. Later in the novel, his team develops a new, more powerful drug called 'power', and the metaphor is a bit too on the nose to be clever, but I like his characterization overall, and as a villain, he's ruthless enough to power a full series of Ian Rankin-type detective fiction.

From high school classes on Macbeth, I remember a lot of the 'good' characters being morally upright. Duncan was a good and beloved king, Banquo was an upstanding citizen, and even Macbeth was more a weak man who fell prey to fate and his wife's ambition than a morally corrupt man in his own right. So I was glad to see the 'good' characters being much more morally ambiguous in Nesbo's version. Duncan was indeed moral in that he was committed to eradicating drugs in his city, but it's unclear how much he knew and chose to ignore the corruption around him. It's also unclear how much his promotion of Macbeth was based on merit and how much it was a political move to cement his reputation as someone not susceptible to cronyism (more on this later).

Moreover, Macbeth's own ambition was more evident here, and any demurring about power feels suspect. Lady (here, the powerful owner of a hotel and casino) still has to prod him to commit murder, but the fact that Hecate sees him as a viable target in the first place shows that he isn't quite as incorruptible as I remember from the Shakespeare original. When we first meet him, he has taken his team on a rogue assignment to provide backup if needed to a drug bust that his professional rival Duff has set up. His motives may be partly admirable (to ensure the drug traffickers are apprehended), but there also seems clear desire to be the one who saves the day. 

While Macbeth's fall from morality is still the core of this story, it's Duff who I thought really shone as a character in Nesbo's take. The Macduff I remember from the play was more an anti-Macbeth foil, whose actions mostly took place offstage. Nesbo's Duff is a lot more dynamic and complex. He's an orphan like Macbeth yet he managed to make it into privileged social circles. More than even Macbeth and Lady, Duff burns with ambition and has carefully tailored his career to lead him into Duncan's inner circle and position himself as a future Chief Commissioner. Unfortunately, this backfires on him when Duncan decides he can't show any appearance of favouritism in choosing a second-in-command and needs to promote someone who hasn't supported him in his rise to power. Worse, his ambition leads him to make some bad decisions on his job, which in turn leads to him botching the drug bust at the beginning of the novel and giving Macbeth an opportunity to step in as a hero.

I absolutely love Duff's story arc, and empathized so much with his (ultimately self-sabotaging) desire for recognition. Nesbo shows us more of Duff's role in investigating Duncan's death and seeing Macbeth as a suspect, and I love that Duff's interest in the case isn't just based on moral reasons but also inextricably linked to his own ambition and professional jealousy. He's a complex, complicated figure, and so much more real than I remember from the original.

Moreover, I love how Nesbo has created this world with such depth. Whereas fate and one couple's ambition dictated the crimes in the original, Nesbo's novel clarifies (for me at least) how much of a role the environment plays in shaping the events of the story. Macbeth, Duncan and Duff all navigate a world that is already rife with poverty, corruption and crime; the crimes of individual characters seem almost inconsequential in comparison. Even if Hecate and the other drug lord are defeated, even if Duncan stayed on as Chief Commissioner, would that have solved the problems of their city or would other drug lords or other forms of corruption simply take their place? It's a question with no clear answer, yet it's possibly the reason this novel feels so contemporary. We can imagine this city existing in today's world, and we are all too aware of how much work is needed to change it and how little the effects of such change can feel in the immediate future. Possibly as well this is why Duff resonates so much with me, because he's a hero I can imagine existing in real life, whose heroism is compromised yet no less effective. Many of the other characters benefit as well, feeling much more complex and real than I remember from the original.

Nesbo's Macbeth is a powerful tale and just a thrill ride of a read. I love how the books I enjoyed in the Hogarth Shakespeare series are good in such wildly different ways. Nesbo's Macbeth is certainly one of my favourites, possibly second-best only to Margaret Atwood's Hag-seed, and I highly recommend delving into it yourself.

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Macbeth will be published in April 2018.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and Netgalley for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.