What The Author Did: Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø
- Fiction Yogi
- May 12
- 5 min read
Updated: May 13
Note: This article contains affiliate links
In the What the Author Did series, we pull back the curtain on great fiction and take a closer look at the techniques the writer has employed, their purpose and effect. This isn't about reviewing books – it's about exploring the craft choices that shaped the final work and learning from them.
In this instalment of What the Author Did we're taking a look at the craft methods Jo Nesbø uses in his 2013 novel, Cockroaches, which is the second book in the Harry Hole crime thriller series, translated by Don Bartlett.
Nesbø is a much-loved Norwegian novelist whose books have sold in the millions worldwide. You can find out more about him and his books at jonesbo.com.
Warning: If you have not yet read the book, this article contains discussion points that may spoil your first impressions.
Typical tropes originally handled
Nesbø knows what his audience wants, and while Cockroaches doesn't rewrite the genre—rather, it adheres to it closely—he still manages to produce an original, compelling, and hard-to-put-down book. Let's take a look at how he does it.
Tropes:
The story opens with a murder: the Norwegian ambassador in Bangkok, Thailand.
Due to its circumstances and sensitive (read: political) nature, our protagonist, Detective Harry Hole, is brought in to solve the crime with as little publicity and fuss as possible.
Harry is a flawed protagonist, with a drink problem, an uncanny ability to rub his bosses up the wrong way, and a troubled family life.
Questions stack up right from the opening chapter, and any one of a cast of characters could be the murderer, all having various motivations.
The book's setting is a city teeming with shady criminality, in particular in its sex industry.
Nesbø's masterful use of tropes:
Complex, original characters
The jaded detective with a drink problem is a trope as old as detective novels themselves. But in Cockroaches, Nesbø avoids the stereotype and makes the alcoholism—the ways it manifests and how Harry deals with it—specific to Harry. Nesbø doesn't just tell us his protagonist has a drink problem, he makes us understand what that feels like, for Harry, in certain moments.
For example, while interviewing the alcoholic wife of the murder victim: Harry glanced towards the bar. It was three steps away. Three steps, two ice cubes and a glass. He closed his eyes and could hear the ice cubes clink in the glass, the gurgle of the bottle as he poured the brown liquid over and finally the hiss as the soda mixed with the alcohol.
In this book, however, the emphasis is more on Harry staying dry than falling off the wagon—and this we learn early on is driven by a desire to get sober for his Down's Syndrome sister, herself a victim of rape by a perpetrator Harry is determined to see apprehended. All of which, along with grief for lost loved ones, adds to the complexity of his character and motivations.
Aside from Harry, secondary characters are also individual and intriguing. Not least Elizabeth "Liz" Crumley, the bald-headed, butch Thai-American police inspector who doesn't mince her words; the alcoholic Hilde Molne, and her 17-year-old daughter, Runa Molne, a one-armed diver who develops a mutual rapport with Harry; and also the charismatic Norwegian currency broker and risk-taker, Jens Brekke.
Confronting the ugly side of human nature
Read any of Nesbø's books and you'll know he doesn't shy away from the gritty realities of society, no matter how unpleasant. It's what makes his stories so compelling—that they confront the grotesque, the violent, the ugly, for which there are rarely neat solutions or resolution.
While Cockroaches does answer the novel's central questions, the city's dark underbelly—including its migrant sex industry and paedophilia—is showcased in some detail but only to add realism and gravity to the story's backdrop.
Setting as its own character
From beginning to end, the events taking place in Cockroaches are inextricably linked to its setting. The chaos of Bangkok's traffic, its overcrowding and noise, oppressively sticky climate, and deceptively spicy foods, all take their toll on middle-aged, Norwegian Harry and his DTs.
He felt a pulse beating in his stomach and couldn't decide if it was the music, his heart or the dull din from one of the machines pounding piles night and day into Bangkok's new motorway over Silom Road.
Nesbø doesn't just use setting as his story's backdrop—it essentially is a character in itself, without which the book would be much poorer. The boiler pot of heat and noise, perpetual movement, foreign language and customs, combine to echo the atmosphere of pressure and unpredictability that the murder case itself invokes.
Later, as Harry learns his bosses in Norway are keeping pertinent facts about the case from him, we see this breakdown of communication played out metaphorically in the poor phone line crossing the distance between the two countries; the following a discussion between Harry and Dagfinn Torhus from the Foreign Office in Oslo:
'...For some reason I have the feeling I have less to lose than you if confidentiality is broken.'
'What guarantee—' Torhus started, but was interrupted by crackling on the line. 'Hello?'
'I'm here.'
'What guarantee do I have that you'll keep what I say to yourself?'
'None.' The echo made it sound as if he had emphasised his answer three times.
Other techniques the author uses
Steady, consistent pace: In a thriller, you want readers to say they were gripped from first page to last, and Nesbø succeeds in doing this without stepping on the gas the entire time. Rather, he does it with consistent pacing. There is always a question mark no matter where you are in the book or what's happening; a sense of continual forward movement throughout each scene (even when the case takes a backwards step); and when one door closes, another opens.
NOTE: I talk about always having a question mark at any point in your story, in Curiosity in Fiction: Does your novel pass the test?
Giving the reader room to interpret: What makes Harry's third-person narration so enjoyable is that it doesn't overexplain; rather, it provides only enough information for the reader to decipher the rest. For example, the following takes place between Liz and Harry after the death of a significant character:
'Harry?'
He slumped down on a chair.
'It's over now, Harry. I'm sorry, we're all sorry, but it's over.'
Harry shook his head.
She leaned over him and laid a big, warm hand on his neck. The way his mother used to do. Shit, shit, shit.
He got up, pushed her away and went outside.
Dating the chapters: The day, date and month precede each new chapter, emphasizing the time pressure Harry is under to solve the case; and additionally, compounding once again the pressure-cooker vibe the story's setting provokes.
Finally...
I'm a big fan of Jo Nesbø; in particular Blood on Snow and Midnight Sun, for their compelling narrative voice, superb characters, and the soft blow to the gut they deliver.
Leave a comment below if you've read Cockroaches or any of Nesbø's books, and what techniques he uses that you find particularly inspiring.
Cockroaches (2013), Nesbø J., Harvill Secker, Penguin Random House, London
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