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.

Each of these stories could be a primer in the seven deadly sins, as it seems Nesbø focuses on a different one in each tale. He divides the pieces into different subcategories, and you will understand why once you read them all.

In “London,” the standout first story in “Part One – Jealousy,” we have a mental showdown between two characters who are found aboard a plane together. A man and a woman are seated on the flight, not by accident, and I had to grin when one of them refers to the Patricia Highsmith classic, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. One claims to be petrified of flying, while the other confesses to hoping the plane crashes because they want to die. Are we being victimized by an unreliable narrator, or is something entirely different going on? The dialogue is so razor-sharp that you simply will not have time to think too deeply about the characters. You just want to find out if they both make it to London alive.

"Each of these stories could be a primer in the seven deadly sins, as it seems Nesbø focuses on a different one in each tale. He divides the pieces into different subcategories, and you will understand why once you read them all."

The title story, “The Jealousy Man,” is an above-average novella. Here, Inspector Nikos Balli has flown to a small Greek isle called Kalymnos. There he meets up with a colleague, George Kostopoulos, where they discuss the case that Balli has been assigned --- the disappearance of Julian Schmid. The prime suspect, and probably the last person to see him alive, is his twin brother, Franz.

Franz insists that Julian left the room they were sharing at 6am to go for a swim and never returned. Balli sees his role in this case in remarkably simple terms. He is to make a diagnosis as to whether or not jealousy of a homicidal nature was involved. He will be the first to admit that long cases involving tactical and technical investigation is not his strong suit, so he will leave that to his colleagues back in Athens. He claims that he can recall the moment when people recognize that he is about to read other people’s jealousy.

Balli knows this because he has lived through the jealousy cycle: disbelief, despair, rage, self-contempt and, finally, depression. He discusses a particular situation in which a woman he loved put him through this and believes she made him what he has become in his professional life --- the self-proclaimed Jealousy Man. The case, in Balli’s mind, comes down to the twin brothers battling over a woman. He maintains that the rage of jealousy is like love; it’s a madness that can make people do things they normally would never dream of doing.

His involvement in the investigation is usually just a day or two, so his work as a divining rod for jealousy needs to happen quickly. When he does produce a resolution, which ultimately solves the case, it is done brilliantly.

“Rat Island,” which opens “Part Two – Power,” takes place during the start of a wild pandemic that has spread to the point where we find ourselves on the roof of a 90-story high-rise building awaiting a helicopter that is coming to take away Colin Lowe and his family. When the paranoia over the pandemic is just a whisper, wealthy individuals like Lowe purchase land on remote islands or far away in the woods where they can hunker down until the situation reaches an inevitable ending. The helicopter would be traveling to an aircraft carrier, The New Frontier. Unlike COVID-19, here it doesn’t take long from the discovery of the virus to the outbreak of the pandemic and the sudden dissolution of everything.

What makes “Rat Island” work so well is the depiction of the response by the richest of the rich. Not only are they able to get in front of this issue to see that they and their families are taken care of, they also are stocking their bunker-like location with enough weaponry and those trained to use them that they have nothing to worry about. They are headed to Rat Island, which (not surprisingly) is infamous for its abundant rat population. It is here where the symbolism of the rats and the wealthy survivors is constantly at play, which makes for a great breakdown of global emergencies and how they could play out.

At some point in the collection, Nesbø writes, “In fiction great narrative power is often vested in a single look. In a literary sense the convention helps the writer tell his story well, and sometimes to great effect.” I could not have encapsulated my thoughts about THE JEALOUSY MAN AND OTHER STORIES any better than this.