Jo Nesbø: "Russians prefer to live in a powerful country feared by their neighbors"

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In 80% of murder cases, the culprit is closely related to the victim.

In 80% of these crimes, the culprit is the husband or boyfriend.

And in 80% of the cases the cause is jealousy.

That means there is a 51% chance that a jealous man is behind a murder.

The Jealous Man

(Reservoir Books): this is the title of

(Oslo, 1960), the writer who has sold more than 50 million copies of his crime novels worldwide, the creator of the already legendary police officer

.

His new literary foray brings together 12 stories that make it very clear why Nesbø holds the title of '

king ': there is a jealous Greek detective with a very dark past, there is a taxi driver who discovers in the back seat of his car an earring from his wife and deduces that she is having an affair with her boss, there is a woman who gets on a plane determined to end her life after finding out that her husband and her best friend are having an affair and that she tells him her Sorry to the seatmate, there is a guy who works as a garbage man and is not sure if he has killed his wife or her lover...

Jealousy, jealousy and more jealousy.

"I think most of our emotions are based on some kind of logic or evolutionary reason. With jealousy, you can speculate that competition and the desire to mate with the strongest person is behind it. But nowadays it is difficult to find something that makes

. And, on an individual level, I think it is an emotion that most people would like to amputate. But if it weren't for jealousy, the authors of crime novels we wouldn't have as many killers to write about," says Nesbø, who is already working on the next installment of Harry Pole.

"Falling in love is the sweetest of psychoses

," says one of the many characters who parade through

.

"Just as love is a drug, jealousy is a drug. Jealousy is a

. Jealousy takes over your actions, all your thoughts, your whole mind. It's like a nightmare of the one you can't get rid of," says the Norwegian writer, who feels very comfortable writing stories.

"At school I wrote song lyrics for groups of my friends and later for my own band: three verses and a chorus. That's probably when I started writing short stories."

But in reality her new book is not only about that terrible feeling that you experience when you feel that someone you love is interested in another person: the book is divided between seven stories about jealousy and five about power.

Both, emotions behind numerous crimes.

"I studied Economic History, and they taught us that all wars and international conflicts are caused by economic interests, but it is not true. Very often, it is true that there is an economic interest. But if we look, for example, at the war in Iraq , we see that on the one hand it was driven by the oil desires of the United States and Western countries. But, on the other hand, it was also seeking

of the United States, it was said that Bush Jr. needed his war in order to be re-elected", underlines Nesbø.

And, in his opinion, something similar can be applied to

and the war in Ukraine: "On the one hand, there is a political logic in Putin's decision to invade Ukraine, because he considers that this country should act as a buffer between Russia and the But the polls also say that Russians would rather live in a powerful country feared by their neighbors than in a less powerful country with a higher standard of living, where they are willing to sacrifice comfort for feeling powerful. And knowing that this is what the Russian people want has also propelled Putin into this war. Also, we cannot underestimate the extent to which strong leaders want to make a mark on history. I think that in this war there is certainly also ambition Putin's staff.

Norway, Nesbø's country of origin, has

"I don't think being physically close to Russia is a real risk factor, maybe it's more mental. I don't think we're more afraid of Russia now than we were in the '70s, but we're back in the Cold War again."

The

is also present in

, specifically in the story entitled "The Island of the Rats", which portrays an apocalyptic world in which the rule of law is shattered and people fight in the streets for survival while the rich go to their private islands.

"Actually, I wrote that story before the pandemic and the

. And both things happened while I was writing it, it was fiction that became reality. It is a story about the collapse of the

, and I think the inspiration comes from a trip I took years ago to the former Yugoslavia, to Serbia, to Bosnia, to Croatia.

When I was a teenager I traveled a lot to the former Yugoslavia and it seemed like a solid country, people didn't think about whether they were Serbs or Bosnians or Croats.

And then a demagogue like Miloevi came along and within six months he turned people against each other and started a

It seems to us that our civilization and our democratic societies are solid, but that can change overnight."

Another of the stories in Nesbø's new book, the one entitled "Odd", features a successful writer who, fed up with pleasing his audience and the media for commercial reasons, decides to get away from the madding crowd and leave to do "the clown".

Have you ever felt what the clown was doing?

There are people who have certain expectations, and you don't know if you live up to the image they have of you.

Without a doubt, you are influenced by the way people perceive you.

Unconsciously, when I am with a journalist I try to give him what he is looking for.

Human behavior makes us try to comply with what is expected of us.

So, in that sense, I feel a bit of a clown.

But clowning doesn't seem like the worst job you can have.

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