WRITER

Jo Nesbø

1960 - Today

Jo Nesbø

Jon "Jo" Nesbø (Norwegian: [ˈjuː ˈnɛ̀sbøː]; born 29 March 1960) is a Norwegian writer, musician, and former football player and reporter. More than 3 million copies of his novels had been sold in Norway as of March 2014, and he had sold over 50 million copies worldwide by 2021, making him the most successful Norwegian author of all time. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Jo Nesbø has received more than 2,349,693 page views. His biography is available in 52 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 48 in 2019). Jo Nesbø is the 367th most popular writer (up from 381st in 2019), the 22nd most popular biography from Norway and the 5th most popular Norwegian Writer.

Jo Nesbø is most famous for his Harry Hole series of crime novels.

Memorability Metrics

2.3M
Page Views (PV)
68.86
Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
52
Languages Editions (L)
15.06
Effective Languages (L*)
1.99
Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

The Redbreast

2006

Headhunters

Fiction, Art thefts, Executive search firms

Roger Brown is a corporate headhunter, and he’s a master of his profession. But one career simply can’t support his luxurious lifestyle and his wife’s fledgling art gallery. At an art opening one night he meets Clas Greve, who is not only the perfect candidate for a major CEO job, but also, perhaps, the answer to his financial woes: Greve just so happens to mention that he owns a priceless Peter Paul Rubens painting that’s been lost since World War II-and Roger Brown just so happens to dabble in art theft. But when he breaks into Greve’s apartment, he finds more than just the painting. And Clas Greve may turn out to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to Roger Brown.

2011

Nemesis

Fiction, Robbery investigation, Detective and mystery stories

Gripping and surprising, Nemesis is a nail-biting thriller from one of the biggest stars in crime fiction.Grainy closed-circuit television footage shows a man walking into an Oslo bank and putting a gun to a cashier's head. He tells the young woman to count to twenty-five. When the robber doesn't get his money in time, the cashier is executed, and two million Norwegian kroner disappear without a trace. Police Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case.While Hole's girlfriend is away in Russia, an old flame decides to get in touch. Former girlfriend and struggling artist Anna Bethsen invites Hole to dinner, and he can't resist a visit. But the evening ends in an all too familiar way as Hole awakens with a thundering headache, a missing cell phone, and no memory of the past twelve hours. That same morning, Anna is found shot dead in her bed. Hole begins to receive threatening e-mails. Is someone trying to frame him for this unexplained death? Meanwhile, the bank robberies continue with unparalleled savagery. As the death toll continues to mount, Hole becomes a prime suspect in a criminal investigation led by his longtime adversary Tom Waaler and Waaler's vigilante police force. Racing from the cool, autumnal streets of Oslo to the steaming villages of Brazil, Hole is determined to absolve himself of suspicion by uncovering all the information needed to crack both cases. But the ever-threatening Waaler is not finished with his old archenemy quite yet.

2009

The Devil's Star

Fiction, Mystery

Detective Harry Hole: an angry and off-the-rails detective who wants to play the game by his own rules. A young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star – a pentagram, the devil's star. Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work.A wave of similar murders is on the horizon. An emerging pattern suggests that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands, and the five-pointed devil's star is key to solving the riddle.

2005

The devil's star

Fiction, Police, Serial murder investigation

2006

Page views of Jo Nesbø by language

Over the past year Jo Nesbø has had the most page views in the English wikipedia edition with 189,814 views, followed by Russian (111,243), and Italian (89,673). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Simple English (149.76%), Malagasy (74.03%), and Afrikaans (71.26%)