‘Macbeth’ gets a Nordic chill

The Norwegian novelist Jo Nesbo’s adaptation of “Macbeth” is a variation on the known-outcome thriller, a subgenre that we may owe to Frederick Forsyth. The reader picks up Forsyth’s pioneering novel “The Day of the Jackal” (1971) knowing that Charles de Gaulle was not assassinated; the suspense lies in finding out how a near-foolproof plan to accomplish that will be thwarted.

With Nesbo’s “Macbeth,” readerly foreknowledge rises to a new level. We come to the novel not only with an awareness of how the play turns out (not so hot for the title character), but also with a cauldron of memorable features bubbling in our brains — the soothsaying witches, the compulsive hand-washing, Banquo’s ghost and at least a smattering of the poetry: “Out, damned spot,” life is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” etc. Here, the fun comes from watching a crack storyteller put his noir stamp on one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies.

The new “Macbeth” takes place circa 1970, not in a kingdom but in a nominal democracy with a tendency to elect strongmen.

Nesbo tinkers with some elements of the play, as when he changes Caithness’ gender from male to female. He had every right to do that sort of thing, even to skip certain episodes entirely — his fulfillment of the Birnam Wood prophecy is so over-the-top that he might just as well have left it alone. On the whole, though, Nesbo manages the balancing act of being true to the original play without slighting his own interests as a writer: bleak settings, loyalty (or the lack thereof ) among crooks, clever escapes from tight spots, the affinities between policemen and the criminals they chase.

Nesbo’s “Macbeth” is the latest entry in a project in which top-flight novelists are asked to reinterpret Shakespeare. Already published are Jeanette Winterson’s “The Winter’s Tale” (retitled “The Gap of Time”), Howard Jacobson’s “The Merchant of Venice” (“Shylock Is My Name”), Anne Tyler’s “The Taming of the Shrew” (“Vinegar Girl”), Margaret Atwood’s “The Tempest” (“Hag-seed”), Tracy Chevalier’s “Othello” (“New Boy”) and Edward St. Aubyn’s “King Lear” (“Dunbar”). This is heady company for a crime novelist to join, but Nesbo has repaid what may have been a wild hunch on the part of his publisher.