How Netflix’s New Bosch Replacement Adapts Its 13-Book Franchise Explained By Creator

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Netflix is adapting Jo Nesbø’s popular ‘Detective Hole’ book series into a new crime franchise, and the author has shared how he’s involved in bringing his stories to the screen.

The famous Norwegian detective Harry Hole was previously portrayed by Michael Fassbender in the film The Snowman, which was unfortunately a critical and commercial failure. A new series now stars Tobias Santelmann as Harry, who is still haunted by a five-year-old unsolved case involving a series of brutal bank robberies. He’s also currently investigating a serial killer in Oslo who leaves pentagram-shaped gems at the scenes of their crimes.

Before the series launched, Grant Hermanns from ScreenRant spoke with Jo Nesbø about his character, Detective Hole. Nesbø explained that choosing The Devil’s Star as the starting point for the adaptation was a simple decision. He felt the fifth book in the series was where the character of Harry Hole, the world around him, and supporting characters truly came together, creating a solid foundation for the detective’s story.

He really helped me understand why The Devil’s Star is so crucial to the whole Harry Hole series. He said it really grounds you in the world and time period of the books. What convinced me even more that it’s the perfect place to start with Detective Hole is that it’s a classic hardboiled detective story and a really good whodunit, but it still lets him weave in details from the earlier books, which I thought was clever.

Jo Nesbø is bringing his detective Harry Hole to the screen, similar to how Michael Connelly adapted his Bosch novels—a series Nesbø has previously said inspired his own work. Unlike the Bosch series on Prime Video, which sometimes jumped around to novels far apart in the book series within a single season, Detective Hole appears to be adapting a tighter grouping of stories, specifically drawing from Nesbø’s third, fourth, and fifth books.

Now that The Devil’s Star and Nemesis have been mostly incorporated into the Detective Hole series, the big question is how Jo Nesbø will continue the story if Netflix renews the show. While the main storylines from those two books are resolved by the end of the series, the plot of the third book, The Redbreast, wasn’t really explored. Considering that The Redbreast dealt with the sensitive topic of neo-Nazism, Nesbø might choose to avoid that subject matter in future seasons.

Jo Nesbø has written ten other books featuring Harry Hole, giving Netflix plenty of material if they decide to continue the series. While it’s too early to know how many people are watching – the show just launched – critics are loving it, currently giving it a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. If viewers respond as positively, Netflix might aim for a similar level of success as Prime Video had with Bosch.

Since the show is mostly filmed in Norway and Harry Hole is already established there, it’s probably not going to cover the books where he lives elsewhere. However, given how the first season ended – with Harry’s relationships with Rakel and Oleg – the next season could adapt the ninth book, Phantom. That story brings Harry back to Norway to investigate when Oleg is arrested for murder.

It will be fascinating to see if Jo Nesbø revisits The Snowman in his Detective Hole series, given enough time. The 2017 film adaptation was famously rushed, leaving much of the original story untouched and potentially offering Nesbø a chance to improve upon it. However, due to the film’s negative reception and the impact it’s had on the novel’s international reputation, he might choose to wait before revisiting the story.

Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole season 1 is now streaming on Netflix.

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2026-03-28 18:29