Kudos, Mr. Nesbø, for a great collection. While I am eager to see more Harry Hole, I enjoyed this piece quite a bit. The stories were read by a variety of narrators, several of whom I was already familiar with. All performances were excellent. Meet a detective on the trail of a man suspected of murdering his twin; a hired assassin facing his greatest adversary; and two passengers meeting by chance on a plane, spelling romance or something far more sinister. Simon Vance (one of my all-time favorite narrators) read London, the opening tale that was truly captivating and held my attention, and Odd. Quotes from London: "then you smiled, just a tiny wavelet on a slushy puddle," and René "Girard's [mimetic] theory is that beyond satisfying our basic needs we don't know what it is we want, so we mimic our surroundings, we value what other people value..." A veritable crime lover’s delight from a true master of mystery and suspense. Experience the #1 New York Times best-selling author as never before in this dark and thrilling short story collection that takes us on a journey of twisted minds and vengeful hearts.

You found those little bottles of cyanide solution in the cellar, didn’t you, officer?’ The chocolate melts on my tongue, and I can feel the hard centre against my soft palate. ‘One was missing. I took that with me when I was thrown out. Not really sure why. I was pretty far down, maybe I had some idea of doing away with myself. You make hydrocyanic acid from cyanide, but you probably know that?’ Nesbo also takes us to the near future, to a dystopian America, where the upper-class elite is waiting atop a skyscraper to be evacuated while the masses fight for survival in the streets below. We are introduced to two best friends on their way to the running of the bulls in Pamplona when they fall in love with the same girl and, in the epic and vicious finale, we meet a psychologist who also happens to be an assassin. As soon as we answer a call in the Homicide Department and hear the word ‘murder’ at the other end of the line, we know there’s a fifty one per cent chance that the motive is jealousy.” Nikos Balli is “the man they call in when there’s a suggestion that jealousy is the motive behind a murder.” Jealousy is “a boa constrictor...Jealousy has no distinct smell, colour or sound. But it has a story. And it’s listening to this story, what is told as well as what is left out, that enables me to know whether I am sitting in the presence of a desperate, wounded animal...because I am myself a wounded animal...Jealousy evens out the difference between you and me, beyond the barriers of class, sex, religion, education, IQ, culture, upbringning, our behaviour begins to resemble each other’s.” Quite a paradox, isn’t it? I never did get round to sending in those divorce papers, so Simone and I were still man and wife when she died. That makes me the sole heir, officer. So if it really was Henrik Bakke who killed her, what that means is that the man who stole the love of my life from me has made me a millionaire. Me. How’s that for one of life’s little ironies?’ Maybe it was a bit hasty of me to just give up everything like that. After all, she was a wealthy young woman, good for fourteen million, whereas I am a debt-ridden photographer with a little too much faith in his own business skills. Simone supported my idea of starting my own studio along with six other photographers. If not financially then at least morally.This was my first Jo Nesbø book and I enjoyed most of his stories and his dark humour and plot twists. His Harry Hole novel's are meant to be excellent so I look forward to diving into them one day. And yet I’ve never been jealous of Henrik Bakke. Isn’t that funny? At least not in the sense of hating him or having a grudge against him. I think the way I looked at it was that he was just another guy same as me, he loved Simone more than anything else on earth. I actually thought of him more as someone in the same boat as me than as a rival.’ I read that when Henrik Bakke found her he thought at first she was asleep. Pity he wasn’t there when she died. He might have learned something. I mean, it must be fascinating to study a human being in transit between life and death, don’t you think?’ Ovo je njegova prva zbirka kratkih priča, od kojih su neke doslovno kratke - tek desetak ili dvadesetak stranica, dok su druge nešto duže i opširnije, poput naslovnog Stručnjaka za ljubomoru, koji je najduža priča u zbirci.

OK. So that wasn’t exactly true. I was jealous of Henrik Bakke. At least the first time I met him. Let me explain. One day he called me at my office and asked if we could meet, he had some papers for me from Simone. I knew these must be the divorce papers, and even though it was, of course, unspeakable of her to use her new lover to deliver them I was curious to know who he was and so I agreed to a meeting at a restaurant. I presume he was just as curious about me. You’re thinking she wasn’t the type to take her own life. And you’re absolutely right. Don’t ask me how, officer, but I know she was murdered.’ Few of Nesbø's characters pass the decency test. A man's kindliness toward a sobbing woman seated next to him on a flight to London masks dark intentions. An assassin with a day job in Milan as a psychologist is himself marked for death by a sadistic hit man of greater repute. In San Sebastián, an ardent proponent of the multiverse is suspected of killing one of his "other" selves. An Austrian researcher hiding out in Spanish Sahara devises a formula for immortality to save his ailing wife only to fight off corporate types who will do anything to take possession of it. The estranged son of a billionaire thinks twice about saving his father from a deadly snakebite in Botswana. Nesbø is at his best in the long, wonderfully atmospheric title story, which shows off his gift for pulling one story out of another. Summoned to the Greek island of Kalymnos to investigate the possible murder of a man by the man's twin brother, Athens detective Nikos Balli—who specializes in sniffing out jealousy as a motive—ends up detecting an old friend's ill intentions during a mountain-climbing outing. Nesbø is less successful with "Rat Island," a baggy pandemic tale in which marauding bikers tear down the last vestiges of civilization while rich people plan their futures from the safety of a skyscraper. This story and others seem hastily drawn, and the author has a tendency to be too clever for his own good—the twistiest twists can arrive with a soft thud. But he never runs out of ideas or characters driven by inner thoughts. Long a fan Jo Nesbø’s writing, I was curious about this collection of short stories and novellas. While I have come to love Harry Hole and how he emerges as an energetic character, as well as Nesbø’s standalone novels, I was not sure about handling a slew of the author’s creations in a single publication. This collection of stories is not only varied from the crime thrillers that many readers have come to love, but also offers a richness in its presentation, such that there is something for everyone. A great effort by Jo Nesbø, which is sure to appeal to many fans of his gritty writing. This collection of short stories by the talented Jo Nesbø is divided into two themes. The first centres on jealousy and part two around power. I enjoy the first group much better than the second as there’s a really good mix of stories and the theme is evident throughout. The first entitled London is outstanding and my favourite story as I love the clever twist at the end which makes me smile, albeit wryly. The second The Jealousy Man which gives the collection it’s title, has a great premise of sibling rivalry and how that manifests itself into jealousy. It is a bit on the long side with some digressions but it is a clever story of parallel lines. I also like The Line which is short and sharp with the perfect revenge for a line jumper. In Trash we have an angry and jealous refuse disposal officer who really cleans up after himself and The Confession has a particularly yummy Twist! The latter really appeals to my rather dark sense of humour!!Jo Nesbø is one of the most talented writers working today. His mostly Norwegian-based mysteries and thrillers are top-notch. He has proven his ability to succeed with the terrific Harry Hole series, as well as stand-alone novels like THE KINGDOM and HEADHUNTERS, which are modern-day classics. So I was more than a little intrigued to read his first collection of short stories, THE JEALOUSY MAN. Simone loved chocolates. Especially Twist. Every Saturday when I did the shopping at Kiwi I used to buy a big bag of them. It was one of our few routines. It was a sort of anchor in a life based on opportunism, whims, the occasional evening meal together and, as a rule, waking up in the same bed. We blamed our jobs, and I believed that everything would be different once we had a child. That would bring us together. A child. I remember how shaken she was the first time I brought it up. She said. As though it was one of her father’s subsidiary companies and not a marriage she was talking about. Naturally, I had been much too proud to even look at her list. Too hurt to take anything at all from the overgrown villa in Vinderen where we had shared both the good and – the way I remembered it – the very few bad days. We meet a Greek detective who has become an expert on jealousy thanks to some hard-earned lessons from his private life. Far away, in another country, a taxi driver finds his wife's earring in a car belonging to his boss and sets out to discover how it ended up there. High in the skies above, a woman is on board a plane headed to London, about to end her own life in the wake of her husband's affair with her best friend. But who is the man sitting next to her?

Jo Nesbo made his millions writing compelling fiction featuring Harry Hole, a Scandinavian detective. I have read all of these books and found each and every one of them a first class read, in structure, style and plot. So, when I find Nesbo's new book with 'Harry Hole' in bold lettering on the front cover I did not hesitate to buy it. But what did I find? A collection of short stories, most of which were science fiction. But you didn’t, officer. You didn’t manage to connect the poison to the remains of chocolate you found in her stomach because the chocolate had already melted and dissolved. So I began to worry that Henrik Bakke might get away with it.’I'm not typically drawn to short stories, but I am a fan of Nesbo's Harry Hole series, so this seemed like a logical choice for a winter's read. The book is divided into two parts, the first titled "Jealousy" (which is the theme of the stories), the second "Power" (its theme.) All the stories were clever, but as with any collection,there are standouts. Not that things were so important for her when she was alive either. I’ve just been explaining all this to the officer. That she told me I could take anything I wanted when she threw me out – the stereo, the TV, books, kitchen equipment, you name it. She was ready for it. She’d decided this was going to be a civilised breakup. Anyway, he turned out to be a really nice person – polite without being servile, intelligent but in a discreet way, and with a humorous appreciation of the comical aspect of our situation. We drank a couple of beers, and when he began after a while to talk about Simone it didn’t take long for me to realise that he was having exactly the same trouble with her as I had had. She was a cat. She came and went as she pleased, she was spoiled and moody, and loyalty was not her most outstanding quality. If I can put it like that. He complained of all the men friends she had and wondered why she couldn’t have female friends like other women. Talked about the nights she’d come home drunk after he’d gone to bed, and all the new and exciting people she’d met who she was so keen to tell him about. In a sort of aside he asked if I’d seen her since we’d split up and I’d moved out, and with a smile I had to tell him no. The smile was because I had realised that he was probably more jealous of me than I was of him. Isn’t that something of a paradox, officer?’ The good thing about Twist is the wrapping,’ I say. ‘That you can change your mind. You can wrap it up again without anyone’s being able to see it’s been opened. Unlike most other things. Confessions, for example. Once a confession has been so to speak unwrapped then that’s it, it’s too late.’ On paper the money was hers, but it was her father who pulled the strings. The insistence on a prenup when we got married was, of course, his idea. He probably saw it all, how she’d soon grow out of her longhaired young photographer with his lofty dreams and his ‘artistic ambitions’.