Jo Nesbo and his mysterious detective Harry Hole are responsible for some of the biggest selling Nordic crime fiction releases in recent years. Here in the UK, Redbreast and The Snowman have each been hugely successful, while The Leopard is on our ‘to-read’ list.
As a guest speaker at the Edinburgh International Book festival, Nesbo spoke earlier this week of the recent tragedy that afflicted his native Norway, and how the horrific actions of Anders Behring Breivik will no doubt shape Norwegian crime fiction for years to come.
Crime fiction has always drawn on real life, but few events or instances have genuinely altered it, reshaping the way it is constructed. Jean Baudrillard argues that fiction as a whole changed with the September 11 attacks, and certainly the rise of the terrorism-thriller genre can be linked to this tragedy.
Before we leave you with The Guardian’s Nesbo interview, then, ponder this and let us know your thoughts on the subject – what real-life tragedies have reshaped the crime fiction genre?
