‘My brain always findsanewway to scare me’

Former footballer, band frontman, bestselling author and now, at 63, elite climber, JO NESBO loves a challenge. He talks to Sambaker about being drawn to the things that frighten him – and why writing was his plan D

I’m on a wonky Zoom line to one of the most famous living Norwegians. Not that you’d know it. Bearded and wearing a cap low over his heavy-framed glasses, Jo Nesbo looks like what he is: a fit, youthful, slightly hipster dad in his early 60s. What he does not look like is a man so globally successful that he comes just below dramatist Henrik Ibsen and artist Edvard Munch in a Google list of famous Norwegians, but above his friend Morten Harket, lead singer of 80s mega-band A-ha. ‘Really? Ahead of Morten Harket?’ he says, his face lighting up with delight. ‘I’ll have to tell him next time I see him!’

Jo Nesbo has every right to be delighted. Since his first novel, The Bat, was published in Norway in 1997, he’s sold 55 million books, 13 of which star his iconic detective Harry Hole, and been translated into 40 languages. He was first published in the UK eight years later in 2005, at the start of the Nordic noir wave that included drama series The Killing and Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Since then, he’s topped the bestseller lists here seven times. Yet you’d pass him in the street. ‘That’s the difference between me and Morten,’ he quips. ‘I can work in a coffee shop and not be bothered. He’s a rock star, I’m just a writer.’

The ‘guy who loves making up stories’ and ‘gets paid handsomely for it’ is dialling in from Greece, where he’s on a climbing and writing break; two of his great loves, along with football and music. Writing wasn’t plan A, it wasn’t plan B. Or C.

Nesbo grew up in Molde, a small city on the west coast of Norway, where his parents Per and Kirsten relocated when he was eight. Young Nesbo was not best pleased. ‘I had lived in Oslo, where in a radius of 50 metres there were 30 kids the same age. It was a wonderful place to grow up. Being removed from Oslo was a big shock to me. Since then I’ve always had this romantic view of Oslo.’

In Molde, Nesbo and his two brothers threw themselves into football. He won best junior player at the prestigious national cup and was signed by Norwegian premiership side Molde FK. But he had his sights set higher. ‘Playing for Tottenham was my dream. We were national champions at the junior level, so we were ready for the next step, but then I tore the ligaments in both knees, so I had to come up with a plan B. I didn’t have a plan B!’

The problem was that Nesbo had been too obsessed by football to bother with school. ‘I’d skipped classes because I was sure I’d be a professional player. When that door closed I figured I’d have to do what my parents had always told me and get an education.’ After doing mandatory military service in the air force, he studied at the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen before becoming a stockbroker.

It was while working in finance that Nesbo formed his band Di Derre (Those Guys) with his brother Knut and a bunch of friends. One of life’s frontmen, he wrote the lyrics, sang and played guitar. What began as five mates having a laugh then turned into a recording contract, two number one singles and a tour. The others became full-time musicians but Nesbo refused