"Macbeth" by Jo Nesbo - The Scottish Ploy

This is one of the latest adaptations in the Hogarth Shakespeare project.
It must have sounded good at the time - Scandi-noir adapting Tartan-noir. What a ploy to get thriller fans queuing at the nearest Waterstones.
Och, it is such a yawn. At over 500 pages, it never seems to end.
I fondly remember the modest film from 1955, "Joe Macbeth" -  American gangsters, Sid (Carry On) James as "Banky"/Banquo.
Nothing new here. This bloated effort features some cringe-worthy dialogue and tedious plotting.
Initially it's fun - the setting is a dismal 1970's industrial wasteland/doomed city - very dystopian.
Hecate (and the weird sisters) manufacture "brew" (SWAT boss-Macbeth's drug of choice, as well as most of the town). Lady Macbeth is "Lady", an ex-madam, now running Inverness's classiest casino. Both Macbeth and Lady were sexually abused as children. Does this account for their psychosis and lust for power?
But it's soooo drawn out. There is a cliched subplot with Duff having an affair with forensic officer, Caithness (female in the book) and the Mayor (of this 70's Gotham) is called Tourtell (which accounts for a lame joke toward the end of the book).
Please, Mr Nesbo, keep your novels set in Norway. The one set in Sydney, Australia ("The Bat") is another case in point.

If you want a decent Shakespeare adaptation, try Edward St Aubyn's take on "King Lear" - "Dunbar".