THE WORLD HAS COME TO OSLO:THE NESBO INTERVIEW

Thanks are due to Karen at Euro Crime for the link to a fascinating interview with Norwegian author Jo Nesbo, creator of the gripping Harry Hole series. A series so good that they can publish it out of order and it still gets rave reviews.

See Karen's post here:

http://eurocrime.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-can-we-expect-from-jo-nesbo.html

Having just read Massimo Carlotto's short story Death of An Informer on the theme of the "foreigner" in Crimini I was struck by this passage in the Nesbo interview.

The picture postcard idyll of the nice cobbled streets, the City Hall, Holmenkollen and the Kontiki museum are still there, but now have company. Foreign beggars sitting in the slush on street corners and Baltic prostitutes shivering in the cold in Skippergata. The world has come to Oslo.

"Yes, Oslo is a cosy little capital town, but it is also what you have seen. It has the highest number of fatalities from drug overdoses in Europe.

Last year the number of rapes reported per inhabitant was three times what it is in New York.

There is organised crime, hardcore prostitution, trafficking, drugs from the Balkans and the Russian Mafia......It is still asafe very beautiful town in one of the richest countries of the world, a safe town, but there is all the rest,......."

The full interview is available at:

http://www.salomonssonagency.com/jonesbo/CopyAuthor/norwegian_evil.pdf

It is an incredibly honest interview that does not pull any punches especially about the Norwegian participation in the Second World War.

I am certainly looking forward to the rest of the Harry Hole series being published in English.