A really interesting contemporary take on Macbeth. Nesbo take Macbeth from an ancient Scottish lord to a modern Scottish policeman. Ambitious, but weighed down by a troubled past and an even more troubled present, Macbeth becomes convinced that he'll have to kill to get the future he deserves.

Well, I love Jo Nesbo more than Shakespeare ( awful to admit, I know), but sometimes rewriting a classic is not the best idea [ Hogarth]. I found this rendition of Macbeth bloody tedious, emphasis on bloody. I lost track of the body count, but it was incredibly high. Babies and children were not spared, but I slogged through hoping for some redemption. Power corrupts and it that way, Macbeth’s message still resonates 600 years later, as we see #45 still clinging to his power, determined to be the ruin of a great democracy.

Nesbo does not disappoint in his retelling of this classic. I loved the modern take (drug lords!) but I also think if you aren't a fan of Shakespeare that could work against you here. As always the character development and the way Nesbo sets a scene were incredible and it further solidified his status as one of my favorite crime writers.

I am not a fan of this book at all. I thi k that the author is trying g to hard and just the series isn't for me.

This book is a slow burn that ramps over time, and the modern take on Macbeth yields an even grittier read than the original Shakespearean work. It's a rollercoaster with some unexpected twists and turns to make it a fresher read than you'd expect from a reboot of a classic. While I enjoyed reading it, it's not one I would reread given the nature of the plot and the characters.

Jo Nesbo, I want to love you. I really do. But I just....can't. I have tried so many books and while the premise of the books are amazing, the writing falls short for me, and I hate his drunken, drug addled, unreliable protagonists. Another miss for me.

A magnificent retold of one of the most famous plays from The Bard, Macbeth by Jø Nesbo is a dark novel, well set in a post war era where the city has been in the hands of corrupt politicians and its inhabitants take refuge in drugs and gambling. It is an immersive story that can not be read without the reader identifying with their characters, their weaknesses and virtues, which make them seem so real and actual.
Excellent!
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to read this magnificent work of the incomparable Jø Nesbo!

Fantastic! 5 stars from me! I love these Hogarth Shakespeare books! Gritty this one. A tad long, perhaps. But my wife and I both enjoyed this one.

I've long been a been a fan of Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series. I was hoping this would be more of that. Sadly it was not. I suppose if I knew the story of Macbeth better I might have enjoyed it more, but I do not, and can only judge this book based on what's written inside. There are a few interesting moments, but the characters were forgettable, which is odd for Nesbo, because usually his characters shine. Three out of five stars because the story held my interest and I was able to finish it, but overall it didn't live up to the author's usual output.

Jo Nesbo, like Baz Luhrmann’s interpretation of Romeo & Juliet, has taken a classic Shakespeare play and attempted to adapt it for the modern world. I found the book and the characters hard to follow as well as lacking depth.

As a fan of Shakespeare, and of MacBeth, I felt myself trying to follow / compare the storyline and the modern reinterpretation to the original - many times thinking that the original was easier to follow in “Shakespearean English.” I felt that this interpretation tried too hard to have a modern twist. Nesbo attempted to create visuals in a Tarantino / Frank Miller-esque noir - like a comic book movie and it felt muddled as well as too descriptive.

It is possible that something was lost in the translation. I wanted to enjoy this. I really did, but found myself trying to interpret his version.

I will continue to enjoy Nesbo’s other works and would suggest that he stick to his characters - not reinterpretations of the master.

It tried to be great. Epic conspiracy, betrayals, twists. It is no Shakespeare however. I did find it almost as difficult to slog through though. It just never felt right, didn't seem to quite fit the modern retelling with the setting and characters it was given. This was my first by Nesbo, and seeing as how I'd heard so many good things about this author, maybe my expectations were too high. I still plan to try his more popular series, yet now I find myself less eager to do so.

Is this really the same Jo Nesbo who wrote "The Snowman" and the rest of the Harry Hole series? This story was so dark and to me confusing, struggled to get though it.

Completely different than the Harry Hole series, but every bit as enjoyable (and, in the case of some characters' actions, equally as gut-wrenching). It may be a retelling of a classic, but it's a satisfying story in its own right.

Here's a noir modern retelling of Macbeth by one of my favorite thriller writers ever, Jo Nesbo. He gave us the outstanding Harry Hole series, set mainly in Oslo, Norway, as well as some excellent standalones like The Son. Now he places Macbeth in the 1970s in a run-down, rainy, industrial town that's fighting endemic corruption and drugs.

Though this Macbeth is very well told by a master storyteller, I much prefer his other novels, especially his Harry Hole mysteries, which are must reads for anyone who enjoys intelligent thrillers.

I really enjoyed this book--a great update that can stand alone. If you know Macbeth as the original, I think it is fun to compare, contrast, and think about how you would do an update. If you don't, you can enjoy it as is. For me, my knowledge is limited and comes from a time when I thought The Bard was just a way to torture high school students. Reading this made me want to pull out the old books and try again--these stories are timeless and deal so beautifully with the human condition. I'm looking forward to reading the original again!

Fascinating and gritty crime novel by Jo Nesbo. Nesbo, best know for his Harry Hole novels, takes on the challenge of updating Shakespeare's Macbeth in the modern age. Set in what feels like 1970s Scotland, this novel has all of the grim feel of the war on crime from that period. Everything is hard for a police captain like Macbeth. He is surrounded by crime and corruption. In fact it is often hard to tell who the good guys and bad guys are. He just wants to make a difference. Surrounding him are people who want him to achieve the power he desires, but they are less than scrupulous about how he will attain that power. Slowly, degree by degree, Macbeth is manipulated into the darkness. Yes, you know the story, but this fresh new take is fun and tragic.

Macbeth was my very favourite Shakespeare play, so I jumped at the chance to read Nesbø's interpretation. Nesbø does not disappoint! This is Macbeth with drugs, sex, biker gangs, and even a little rock and roll. All the characters are here, all the darkness, all the madness.
The only reason I gave Macbeth 4 stars instead of 5 was that It took me a while to get into the story and it did seem long.
But, it's the same dark and gritty Jo Nesbø, the same dark and gritty Shakespeare. Highly recommended.

Macbeth is the classic, bloody tale of paranoia, a lust of power and the source of one of the most intriguing relationships in literature: the Lord and Lady Macbeth. And Jo Nesbo does a great job of translating the classic tale into a gritty, Scandinavian noir thriller, set in a 1970s police department.

The plot is very closely modelled after the classic play, with some key, unique touches that make it a new story. After Macbeth gets promoted to the head of SWAT in his Scottish police department, his quest for power and more money (having come from poverty) gets out of control. Thing spin out of control as the department fights its own war on drugs and internal battles as Macbeth becomes more and more unstable.

I really enjoyed seeing Shakespeare’s Macbeth, probably one of the most overdone and overanalyzed pieces of all time, get a fresh perspective. While you can see the references very clearly, there are also some 1970s atmospheric touches that were really very clever. You can tell Nesbo really thought his contribution to this collection of reinterpreted Shakespeare stories (the Hogarth Shakespeare project).

The star of this book is the dark, gritty atmosphere, which just sets the stage. There’s a dense fog that blankets the town throughout the book, and that just enhances this ghostly, gory story. And it has a lot of blood. If you’re not a fan of violence, maybe skip this one.

Other high points include: The Lady-Lord relationship (as in the original) and the touches of the supernatural that dot the book.

This book is a must-read for fans of the original Macbeth and crime thrillers. It’s quite a ride, from beginning to end!

An intriguing premise, and there is much to be celebrated, but some of Nesbø's least successful tendencies keep this from being a truly great reinvention.

Rather than the grisly noir mystery fans of the author might expect, Macbeth leans more toward mafia or corrupt crime syndicate story; think Don Winslow's The Cartel or television's The Shield. Setting in Scandinavia during the drug wars of the 1970s has delicious possibilities, especially as might inform the themes of the classic source material. The plot is tense and dark and gritty, just as it should be, and it certainly speaks to the darker temptations of the human experience, including obsession, naked ambition, and how small compromises become horrific ones once we start down dangerous paths.

What undermines is that several of the key characters' descents are tied to or accelerated by their abuse of (un)controlled substances. Of course this makes sense, but it also allows less than full culpability. No more is it only naked self-preservation or innate darkness that drives to the unthinkable; the blame is shared with drug-induced hallucinations. Take for example the act of murder: it's still evil to kill a supposed friend even if the perpetrator needed to be high to carry out the plan, but contrast that with what it says about the character if he does the same without a chemical to keep his conscience at bay. It fundamentally changes the story.

Missed opportunity: Given the 20th century setting, the female characters could have been given expanded roles, more agency, and greater complexity. Though there is a prominent addition, she is limited by stereotypically female motivations, which was exasperating but also not terribly surprising. More strikingly, why not delve deeper into the fascinating character and motivations of Lady M, rather than have her disintegration be reduced primarily to baby issues. Are those real and debilitating? Of course, but women shouldn't be relegated to drives that are exclusively sexual or domestic. We can be just as dark in our wants and actions as men, thank you. Even the three witches are repainted as junkie hookers, which hardly takes imagination.

The pacing is uneven, and we spend too much time with inflated but dull stories of minor characters. It's an overstuffed telling that might have had more impact if the length had been held in check. Since this is a translation, I'm not certain if this is all at the feet of the author, but what is inescapable is that if in a retelling we lose the power of Shakespeare's language, other elements have to be strengthened or reinvented to compensate.

Would I recommend? To the right reader: absolutely, but with caveat. There's great reward in interrogating fresh takes on classic themes and tales, and I know many like myself who enjoy the process of debating the finer points of the inspired vs. the misguided. It's a complex narrative with something to say, even if you have to be willing to set aside a few elements to fully apprehend.

An English teacher in my school wanted me to purchase this to, hopefully, interest students in Macbeth who wouldn't have been otherwise. It worked. While the language in some of the Hogarth Shakespeare books are a bit much (I'm looking at you, Margaret Atwood), this one was definitely school appropriate. A cool take on an old story.