Norway Crime Author Jo Nesbø Earns $5.1 Million Book Royalties In 2019

Most critics link the development of modern Scandinavian crime fiction to the Swedish authors Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, who together wrote ten novels about the police investigator Martin Beck in the 1960s and 1970s. They introduced a strong sense of place and thick layer of social criticism into the story, characteristics that have gone on to define the genre.

Nesbø's work been praised for expanding the crime genre with psychological insight and a globalized outlook. While critics point to his alcoholic, anti-hero police investigator as a tired trope, Nesbø was one of the writers responsible for popularizing the trope in the first place.