Is this a dagger I see before me?

 

Another great Jo Nesbo book. This is not part of the Harry Hole series (which I absolutely love), this is more of a stand alone book.

I enjoyed this book for a few reasons. Firstly, Macbeth is my all time favourite Shakespeare text. So I am always happy to read modern adaptations. Jo has done a remarkable job of making this a modern story. He has kept all of the main story lines, but adapted it to a police setting. The story begins with Duncan as the Chief Commissioner  (instead of the King), Deputy Commissioner Malcolm, Cawdor head of the gang unit and Duff head of the narco unit with Macbeth being part of the SWAT team with his side kick Banquo and girlfriend Lady. As you can see, all of the main characters are here in the same hierarchy.

The storyline follows that of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, with the right amount of paranoia (brought on by Macbeth using ’brew’ a type of drug) as well as Lady persuading him to strive for promotion. The witches in this version are prostitutes – which gave it an interesting yet appropriate modernisation.

My only issue with the book was that Jo Nesbo kept Shakespeare’s character’s names. Personally I would have preferred them to be different, or at least a different version of the original name. This distracted me for about half of the book, when finally the story was enthralling enough to make me forget about the names.

Due to the use of original names, I will give this book 4 stars instead of 5. A great read for Jo Nesbo and Shakespeare fans.