"Jealousy" and Other Stories

Nesbø, the Norwegian writer and one of the leading representatives of Nordic noir, never stops surprising. Breaking stereotypes, ignoring genre rules, he shows a man as openly as if we were looking into a mirror ourselves—afraid to admit to ourselves: “It’s me.” “There’s no and never will be any censorship in my head,” Nesbø insists. He never reveals his plans in advance, and until recently, it was only known that the writer was working on two collections of short prose. The first includes seven criminal stories united by the theme of jealousy: a feeling ancient, strong, painful, beyond one’s control, changing human nature. Two people meet on an airplane. She says she wanted to die because of her husband’s infidelity and signed a contract with a company that stages suicides. If only the woman knew who was sitting in the neighboring seat… On a Greek island, a tourist disappears, and a detective with a unique ability to recognize jealousy during interrogation is invited to investigate… Suspicion falls on the missing person’s brother, and this motive of Cain and Abel echoes the plot of Nesbø’s latest novel, “Kingdom.” Jealousy is cloaked in a thirst for justice, drives people mad, poisons life—and improves it only when the rival can be removed, both in the literal and the metaphorical sense. Among Nesbø’s heroes there are cynics and simpletons, but they always act unpredictably—even for themselves—because before the green-eyed monster, human logic is powerless. First time in Russian!