Headhunters introduces us to the charming villain Roger Brown, a man who seems to have it all: he is Norway’s most successful headhunter, married to the beautiful gallery owner Diana, owns a magnificent house – and is living larger than he should. Meanwhile, he is playing at the dangerous game of art theft. At a gallery opening, his wife introduces him to the Dutchman Clas Greve. Not only is Greve the perfect candidate for the CEO position of the GPS company Pathfinder that Roger Brown is recruiting for; he is also in possession of ”The Calydonian Boar Hunt” by Peter Paul Rubens, one of the most sought-after paintings in modern art history. Roger sees his chance to become financially independent, and starts planning his biggest hit ever. But soon, he runs into trouble – and it’s not financial problems that are threatening to knock him over this time… The winding, explosive plot takes us from society’s financial and industrial elite to an underworld of contract killers and swindlers, offering Nesbo’s variations on the most spectacular murders, car chases and escapes that the genre has to offer on the way.
When Headhunters was published in 2008, Jo Nesbø established the Harry Hole Foundation – a charity to reduce illiteracy among children in the third world. All proceeds from Headhunters, in all editions and formats including the movie adaptation, go directly to the Harry Hole Foundation.
Yellow Bird Productions (the company behind the adaptations of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium and Henning Mankell’s Wallander) have just finished the Scandinavian movie adaptation of Headhunters. The film will premiere in Oslo in August 2011, and the film distribution rights have been sold to more than 30 countries, with an American remake in the works.
Headhunters was awarded the 2008 Norwegian Book Club Prize for Best Novel of the Year.
