Phantom

Norwegian born Jo Nesbo is multi-talented. He was born in Oslo in 1960, growing up in Molde. He received his degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Norwegian School of Economics. He played football and had aspirations of playing professionally, but a serious knee injury destroyed those dreams. He served in the military, then formed a band called Di derre (Them There), who topped the charts in Norway. He kept his number crunching job during the day and his band performed at night.

The band was popular enough for a publisher to ask Nesbo to write a memoir about his life on the road with a band. For some reason, he instead came up with his first plot for what became his signature series with Inspector Harry Hole. The Bat was his first novel in that series.

So, you have a writer, musician, and economic analyst selling more than 3 million copies of his novels by 2014. Then, an astounding 33 million copies worldwide by 2017....... that is some impressive number crunching.

Nesbo has had one children's book (English translation) Doctor Proctor's Fart Powder, and also had one of his novels (Hodejegerne) made into a film, Headhunters.