National Theatre Platform: Jo Nesbo

Number 1 bestselling crime-writer Jo Nesbo (The Snowman, The Thirst) discusses his gripping new thriller, Macbeth, on the eve of its publication.

A rainy and corrupt industrial northern town in the 1970s, a place where drugs and casinos rule. Macbeth, an ex-drug addict, has turned his life around and joined the police. He’s respected in the force, but his chequered past has stopped him from climbing to the top. Eager for power and glory, he’s persuaded by his lover that he can have it all – but only if he’s prepared to kill for it. As events spiral out of control, Macbeth loses his grip on reality. Plagued by hallucinations and crippling paranoia, he hurtles towards his bloody fate…

Macbeth is Jo Nesbo’s hotly anticipated contribution to the celebrated Hogarth Shakespeare project, which sees Shakespeare’s works retold by acclaimed and bestselling novelists of today. Other titles in the series are: The Gap of Time (Jeanette Winterson), Shylock is My Name (Howard Jacobson), Vinegar Girl (Anne Tyler), Hag-seed (Margaret Atwood), New Boy (Tracy Chevalier) and Dunbar (Edward St Aubyn).