Very disappointed.A good idea (I guess) But really didn’t work for me.Too much of a departure from his usual.

This is the Macbeth retelling from the Hogarth Shakespeare series. I know that's hard to believe with the title and all. In this one, Macbeth is re-imagined as a 1970s police drama in Norway. Because, well, why not? This is a Shakespeare tragedy, so everyone dies. That is not a spoiler. If you haven't read Macbeth, you should probably do so immediately. (I think I just figured out where George R.R. Martin got the idea that you can kill all of the main characters and keep going. That should have been obvious.) This is dark and well written and this author is quite amazing, so I definitely recommend it.

I wasn't too thrilled with this book. I have read the Harry Hole series and liked Jo Nesbo's plot weaving and characters. To me the plot and characters didn't come together for a good story. Pass.

This is Macbeth for the more modern era. This telling both parallels and sometimes parodies the Classic Shakespeare Macbeth. It would be interesting to have students read both and compare and contrast the two stories. Some people never change and are always predictable but occasionally circumstances change our lives and our selves making us new people. I enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to anyone looking for their next Book Fix.

Had a hard time getting into this book. Usually, Jo Nesbo grabs my attention on the first page. this one took a long time setting the scene. Only my love of Nesbo's books kept me at it.

"You’re a better man than me, Macbeth."

Jo Nesbo's Macbeth is his contribution to the Hogarth Shakespeare Project. This book started slowly for me. Which is funny because the book opens to action but nevertheless it was S-L-O-W. There is a lot going on all at once and there are a lot of characters with their agendas. I found I put this book down a lot in the beginning and turned to other books but kept coming back to this one. As I said I struggled in the beginning of this book as it was slow, but it didn't stay that way. This Mash up of Nesbo and Shakespeare was quite entertaining. After the first couple of chapters I was hooked. This book kind of snuck up on me. If you struggle in the beginning of this book as I did, stay with it, it's worth it as Nesbo unleashes his re-telling of Macbeth as only he can! It's gritty, dark and addictive (once you get past the beginning).

"It’s never what you want to do, but what you have to do."

Set in the 1970's, this book focuses on a police force attempting to shed its drug problem. A dangerous drug lord named Hecate has high connections in the city and will use them to get what he wants - absolute power. He is manipulative and clever. Macbeth is a man with demons. He has addiction issues and is prone to violence and paranoia. He also just so happens to be the head of the SWAT team. Hecate's plan involves manipulating Macbeth while putting him in a position of power. Hecate also owns one of the two casinos in the rainy industrial town which serves as the setting for this book. The other casino is owned by Macbeth's girlfriend, Lady.

"A last desperate act which, seen from the outside, is a sacrifice, but which deep down you hope will be rewarded with the forgiveness of your sins and opening of heaven’s gates."

A drug bust goes wrong at the beginning of the book and Macbeth and Duff, his childhood friend need to clean up the mess. It's not long after that drug bust when power, greed and guilt come into play. Ambitions can and do get the worst of people in this book. In one way or another various characters owe others debts and call them in. Soon greed, ambition, corruption, backstabbing, lies, murder, love, guilt and the need to be the top dog in the city get the best of many characters.

Nesbo puts his personal touches on Macbeth focusing on political ambition, greed, murder, and police procedures and corruption. I thought Nesbo’s re-telling was clever, entertaining and intelligent. Nesbo's Macbeth was well written and well thought out. I can’t imagine how much work it took to right such a re-telling. I think he pulled off the re-telling brilliantly.

Thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Set in a dying industrial town in the 1970's, this was an excellent re-imagining of Shakespeare's classic Macbeth story as told by one of my favorite authors, Jo Nesbo. A very dark, intense plot that was very rich in characters including corrupt cops, corrupt politicians , drug lords and biker gangs where seemingly everyone is power hungry and tests of loyalty and betrayal are around every corner.
If you are fan of Shakespeare or Nordic noir, you will enjoy this. Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In a downtrodden Scottish city, the ultimate struggle for power is playing itself out. The long-standing and thoroughly corrupt head of state has just died and a lot of the people under his command are scheming for ways to move up the organizational ladder. Urged by his cunning, greedy, and ruthless wife, one man in particular exhibits the resolve to reach all the way to the top. As a man of action rather than his own ideas, he clears the path for his ascent with a murderous, drug-fueled rampage that leaves many people—both the innocent and the not-so-innocent—dead or injured. Although he does briefly reach his goal, none of this ends well: he dies at the hands of his best friend and chief rival while his wife, haunted by a past she cannot outrun, commits suicide.

If you are thinking that you have read that story already, you undoubtedly have. It’s Macbeth! Only, in this case, it is Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo’s thoroughly impressive retelling of Shakespeare’s classic tale of out-of-control ambition. The author does a truly masterful job of bringing the story forward in time by almost 400 years while staying true to the genre that he knows so well. He transforms the quest to control a sovereignty to the quest to control the police department that effectively runs the town and also embeds a number of other clever updates (e.g., Hecate, head of the witches in the play, becomes a drug lord who exerts his power behind the scenes). The author even makes the bold choice to use as many of the original names as possible, which, after the reader adjusts to it, becomes an effective device.

If this is not a perfect story, that is at least partly because Shakespeare’s Macbeth is not a perfect play. But it is a great play that alternates between being disturbing and thrilling in roughly equal measures. And so it is with Nesbo’s novel that draws from the same source material. This is a grim, gritty, and depressing tale in which no one really wins in the end. Although some semblance of order is restored as the story concludes, it is not at all clear that the plight of the besieged city is going to improve, regardless of who is in control. But, of course, you could not really reproduce Macbeth and have it work out any other way.

This is the seventh effort to appear in Hogarth Shakespeare’s ambitious project to reimagine some of the Bard of Avon’s best work. Have read them all—and enjoyed most of them—I have to say that Nesbo really rose to the occasion here. While the most of the other books were relatively short at around 250 pages or so (undoubtedly because stage plays themselves are generally shorter), the author here has gone the other way to produce a work that is almost twice that length. This commitment to deepening the story allowed him to turn several less-developed players in the original play (e.g., Caithness, Lennox, Seyton) into fully realized characters. In fact, as riveting as the story itself is, the novel Macbeth might work best as a collective character study on the destructive power of addiction: to the pursuit of power, to narcotics and other vices, and to the inability to move on from the past. Along with Margaret Atwood’s inventive Hag-Seed, this a book that fulfills the promise of what this series should be.

This was my second book by Nesbo, but it won't be my last. He is so good at created an atmosphere and moody, intriguing characters. Gripping!

Dark and fun! MacBeth starts off very strong then slows down and picks up steam (and a steam engine!) for a cinematic finish. Characters are well drawn and set in a blurry time and place in post WWII Britain (Scotland?). Lots of bloody killing and a nice twist toward the end. A nice homage to a classic, with cool touches like keeping the names of Shakespeare's characters.

Outstanding. Absolutely worth the wait and the hype! Thank you so much to NetGalley, Jo Nesbø, and Crown Publishing for this ARC of Macbeth. I had never read a Nesbø novel, and after devouring Macbeth, I'm a fan! 5/5, will absolutely recommend to friends.

I generally greatly enjoy Jo Nesbo's work but this retelling of Macbeth is too contrived for me. It reminds me of some UK friends who compete to write memos in the style of favorite authors. I will not review it online.

This is a great romp of an adaptation for fans of both Jo Nesbo and Macbeth. The latest in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, Nesbo takes Macbeth into a 1970s world of crime. Macbeth is the head of SWAT in a city overrun with criminals and a drug called "brew". The plot is dark and well-written as a police drama. Nesbo easily weaves the plot of Macbeth into this updated version. It took me a little while to get into it, but after that I was hooked.

A Hogarth Shakespeare tragedy

Ms. Nesbo is the latest bestselling author to have been commissioned to retell a tragedy originally written by Shakespeare and to spin the tale in a modern way for the a 21st century audience, he chose Macbeth.

“Macbeth “is a thriller about the struggle for power. In Mr. Nesbo’s version the main character “Macbeth”, is the leader of a Swat team in a coastal city where crime is rampant. After a drug bust that went terribly wrong Macbeth and his team must clean up. Power and money becomes the main character’s ambition. He is soon plagued by hallucinations and starts to unravel. In order to get what he thinks is rightfully his, Macbeth does the imaginable….

Nesbo’s revamp is an intricate and dark plot weaved in intrigue, passion and the fallibility of the human mind. It is also a gripping drama that enfolds out of guilt, ambitions and moral conflicts. The story is well-written as a police drama the author is known for. It is a hard book to get into with its multiple characters to get to know and a story that is filled with conspiracies and murders to track of; it is not an easy read. It took quite some time before I managed to piece everything together but mid-way without even realizing it I was totally hooked and I could not put this book down so intrigued to see what would come next I kept pushing forward and I could honestly say that by the end I enjoyed this tragedy.

This dark and gritty crime noir fiction is an excellent addition to join the list of books retelling Shakespeare’s plays by well-known authors.

3 stars

This book is Jo Nesbo’s contribution to the Hogarth Project of re-telling Shakespeare’s plays. Luckily for the reader, Mr. Nesbo chose to do it in crime-writing style. I didn’t like this book as well as Mr. Nesbo’s other works, but perhaps that it just me. It is set in the 1970’s.

Macbeth is in charge of a team that pursues drug kingpins. The town they police is a run-down semi-industrial area that has little to offer. One of the casinos is run by Macbeth’s girlfriend Lady.

This book has it all: murder, mayhem, deceit and your usual backstabbing. In a almost derelict town, there’s not much else to do except get high and commit crimes in order to get high again.

It is well written and plotted as are all of Mr. Nesbo’s novels. The action begins immediately and continues, albeit a little slowly, throughout the book. I am not sure I liked Macbeth, although I imagine it is difficult finding one’s way in a corrupt police department. I will continue to follow Jo Nesbo.

I want to thank NetGalley and Crown Publishing/Hogarth for forwarding to me a copy of this book to read.

I am a big fan of the Harry Hole series but have a difficult time getting interested in another character. This is a dark and brooding book and I’m sure it will have a big following because of its wonderful author.

A rainy, drug-infested industrial town in the 1970's is the setting for this Hogarth Shakespeare retelling. Duncan is the new police commissioner, a ray of hope among the corrupt powers that be, Inspector Duff is the vain, ambitious head of Narco, a Duncan man. Hecate is a drug dealer with an up-and-coming homemade brew (and three witchy messengers). And Macbeth, heroic, big-hearted commoner and former junkie is the head of SWAT (soon to be promoted, of course)--and in thrall to the older, beautiful and powerful proprietor of the posh Inverness Casino, Lady. Police procedurals aren't my favorite, but can't argue with the appropriateness for the story. More obvious and direct than some of the other Hogarth reimaginings.

Thank you Net Galley for the free ARC. In the Hogarth Shakespeare series, modern authors use their own writing styles to recreate one of Shakespeare's plays. Nesbo did Macbeth and lucky for us, he wrote it as the crime and mystery drama that he is known for.

Duff, Banquo and Macbeth all work for crime units and are pursuing drug smugglers. When "Cawdor" mills himself because he is suspected of being involved in the drug smuggling, Macbeth gets a promotion to run the unit. Duff is unhappy about this, because he is not sure of why they killed Cawdor and because he wanted the promotion for himself.

Lady edges on Macbeth to kill Duncan,so he can climb even higher in the police unit. He stabs him while he is staying at the casino and blames the bodyguards for being tied to the drug gang.

All in all, this book well represents the ambition of the Scottish play. I was not as involved int he characters as I am in the Nesbo crime stories, but good effort.

Hogarth publishers have commissioned a number of current writers to redo some of Shakespeare’s plays by setting them in modern times with modern characters. The assignment can be very tricky. Jo Nesbo has undertaken to reprise Macbeth, with limited success, in my view.

Instead of contending for the crown of the Kingdom of Scotland, the characters joust over control of the police department of a seedy town. This trope might work for some stories, but Macbeth involves serial murders and a blood lust for power that is plausible when the prize is a kingdom (especially one as beautiful as Scotland), but seems too much a stretch when the prize is a merely better paying job with moderately increased perks and prestige.

Nesbo strives mightily to retell the Macbeth story in modern guise. Nearly all the characters have the same names as in Shakespeare’s opus. There is even an appearance of three witch-like characters who prepare a potent brew of amphetamines [to be marketed to junkies] not unlike the witches’ brew in the original. I could overlook Banquo’s naming a son Fleance, but I just could not buy into Lady (yes, that’s her name: just "Lady") convincing her boy friend, Macbeth, that he must murder his boss, Duncan, if his career is to get any traction.

I lost interest in the book and did not finish.