Bergen, where Jo Nesbø’s Snowman carried out his grisly work, refashions its image
Bergen, with its protected historic waterfront and romantic, low-hanging mountain mists, is quite used to being packaged for foreign consumption. Long sold as “the gateway to the Norwegian fjords”, the Viking port is an established stop-off for Nordic cruises and, since the recent international literary boom in Scandi-noir fiction, it also finds itself a big draw for fans of the bestselling crime genre.
Some of its surrounding geographical features have become synonymous with gruesome fictional deaths, largely thanks to the enormously successful Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø. And Bergen’s streets, with their processions of hooded quilted jackets, zipped against the rain, now say only one thing to most modern tourists: “murder”.
The release this weekend of the mega-budget thriller and based on the seventh book in Nesbø’s detective saga, should really mean that thewas shot and the popular Vidden hiking trail between the Ulkriken and Floyen mountains is the scene of one of the horrific murders detailed in the book.
