Trump’s ICE police officers are creating conditions similar to civil war.Image: keystone
Review
Jo Nesbø stabs into the American heart of darkness with his powerful new thriller “Minnesota”: It masterfully describes how good people can become monsters.
Feb 1, 2026, 8:43 p.mFeb 1, 2026, 8:43 p.m
Julian Schütt / ch media
Good thriller authors create horror scenarios in which they foresee real events and developments. They are more in tune with the times than their colleagues from serious literature, who often only air their personal problems. Crime writers first and foremost want to entertain and smuggle their explosive social and political diagnoses into the story as if casually.
One person who does this masterfully is the 65-year-old Norwegian thriller god Jo Nesbø. With his latest novel “Minnesota” (2025), which has just been published in German, he stabs into the American heart of darkness. He, who partly grew up in the USA and lives there again and again, talks about what has made the current events in the state of Minnesota and especially in Minneapolis possible.
ICE troops act like Trump’s Gestapo
For a month now, the ICE deportation agency has been living up to its nickname as Trump’s Gestapo. This January, ICE agents shot and killed two innocent U.S. citizens. The authorities are extremely brutal in raids against immigrants. She even put a five-year-old boy in prison. Only after violent protests did the US President withdraw a commander from Minneapolis. Conservative voices in the United States are also afraid of civil war and dictatorial conditions.
“Even good people can become monsters”: Author Jo Nesbø.image: Eva Manhart
Jo Nesbø is convinced that democracy and freedom of expression no longer have a high priority in Trump’s USA. Violence is present on a much larger scale than in Europe. In the novel, he has a resident of Minneapolis say: After what happened in the city, “nothing here is the same as it used to be.”
Under Trump, the middle class is “being hit in the face”
He means the murder of the black resident George Floyd by a police officer in 2020. The event “tore apart” the city, in which many immigrants live, and extremely polarized people. Then the Covid pandemic came straight away. In the 80s, the city was already suffering from the crack “plague”. What’s more, it’s no longer just the poorest and defenseless who are getting “fucked in the face,” as the book says, but also the middle class, who were once “the backbone of this country, are now the dirt in the middle.”
Many immigrants as well as whites hope for the American dream, but it is mainly fulfilled for the rich and powerful, who are becoming ever richer and more powerful. As Nesbø writes in the novel, when it comes to the American dream, the USA “ranks pretty far down the list of social mobility,” even behind former Eastern Bloc countries.
Torn USA: Trump’s ICE henchmen are taking brutal action against the civilian population.Image: EPA
The narrator is a Norwegian writer who has a lot in common with Nesbø and is researching a fictional series of murders in Minneapolis that took place in 2016, when everyone still believed that Hillary Clinton would win against the loudmouth Donald Trump. Minnesota has been voting reliably Democratic for 50 years, and Minneapolis is also governed by a Democrat. Nevertheless, there are many, especially white people, who think conservatively and racistly.
One of the greatest freedoms in Minnesota is the right to own weapons. The National Rifle Association RFA is all-powerful. In the novel, the mayor of Minneapolis is their biggest lobbyist and manages to get the RFA’s gigantic annual conference to be held in the city. However, the serial killer is targeting arms dealers and lobbyists, and there is increasing evidence that he is planning an attack on the mayor at the annual conference.
How and why police officers lose control
This is incredibly exciting and atmospherically told. But what’s even more captivating is how the author describes police officers who completely lose control. They strike quickly, again and again, until the victim’s nose is broken. And they beat the slumped body until the blood pumps out of the face. Only then is the police officer pulled away by his colleagues.
Nesbø shows how and why violence among officials escalates. Private disasters and police work become confused. Rivalries and racial prejudices in the Corps lead to people torpedoing each other instead of supporting each other. Some feel vindicated by Trump, who already took the position during the 2016 election campaign that the police should be tougher when making arrests. In addition, many officials are in cahoots with criminals. If you want to know how good people can become monsters – you can find out in the brilliant thriller “Minnesota” by Jo Nesbø.
Jo Nesbo: Minnesota. Crime novel. Ullstein, 416 pages. (bzbasel.ch)