The Snowman: A Detective Hole Novel (7)

January 22, 2019 A Review by Anthony T. Riggio of the book The Snowman by Jo Nesbo 1-20-19 I purchased this book on Amazon based on a recommendation by a friend. It was a thriller mystery involving a serial killer in Norway. The book says it is “soon to be a major motion picture”. After reading this book I hope to see this movie to see how close it is to the book it will be. The book would have been a fast read but the Scandinavian names were a bit of a hurdle and the lack of experience with their nomenclatures and street names were a distraction for me. The book was a little slow going at the beginning as too much time was spent on character development. However, once you got over these small issue, the characters and story line began to flow more easily for the American reader. The issue of serial killers is not unique to the United States but it was apparent that in Norway they have no central data base for violent crime as we have here in the United States. In fact the main character and respected detective had garnered his view of serial crimes from his attendance at the FBI's National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. That a serial crime of murder is rare in some countries, the reality is that many countries do not have the capacity to effectively deal with these types of crimes. With the easy travel in Europe, I would hope there is some version of the FBI's VICAP data base where all violent crimes throughout the United States are fed into a common data base. The protagonist in this book is an Inspector of the Police (again, the pronunciations of the Police and their affiliates are impossible to pronounce that you have to struggle to remember) whose name is Harry Hole, and his personal life is a mess, divorced, living alone and a former alcoholic. His reputation as a detective is heralded and his investigative skills are predicated on his incredible perceptive sense of knowing and concluding. This often defies normal deductive reasoning but he is always right. This talent leaves his colleagues in total wonderment. The underlining reason for the instant serial killer's motivation is based on genetics and the reader has to figure out a lot of disease terminologies and the undercurrent for Scandinavian promiscuity, especially among the female gender. The book at some point, becomes compelling and obsessive to the reader, once the overriding plot and characters are fully developed. The book presents many twists and turns and great suspensions and unexpected surprises. I have to say that the author, creates a very readable story once you overcome the names and the incredible intuitive power of Harry Hole. Once the identity of the actual killer is revealed the actions against Harry Hole are fully understandable and may surprise the reader. I purchased this book through Amazon and and give it five stars out of five because of the compelling story and numerous surprises. I unhesitatingly recommend this book to all those who are fascinated by the workings of the criminal mind bent on killing to achieve their goals.

The main character of this book is a man you want to get to know and spend some time with. He's shrewd and savvy with a checkered past and a strong inner voice compelling him to do what's right. His name is Harry, he's a detective in Oslo Norway and his compelling personality adds a lot of entertainment to this book. The plot is also packed with suspense and true to its genre- there are twists, turns, false leads, crime scenes, layers of mystery and action. The basic premises of this book revolves around Harry and his partner Katrine tracking down a demented serial killer. Once the characters are in place, the book takes off. In fact the second half of the book is non stop at times. In short, this is an excellent book for those who enjoy fast paced mystery/thrillers. It predictable but a completely satisfying read and certainly adds to the reason for the growing popularity of Scandinavian crime literature .

Another serial murder mystery by a Scandinavian author, this time a Norwegian, and Detective Harry Hole takes us through a labyrinth of Norse names and Oslo places before this 454 page novel winds to a climactic end. Actually I counted about four climaxes before the final one. There's no Girl with a Dragon Tattoo in this one, no journalist Mikael Blomkvist, and no Stieg Larsson stringing out the plot and fleshing out the characters, but there is a detective Harry Hole known for being the only Norwegian who worked on a serial murder case, and there is the most unlikely object of horror, the eponymous Snowman, whose appearance after a snowfall presages the downfall of another innocent victim. If you've read or seen any of Larsson's Millennium Trilogy and enjoyed them, you will be delighted to find Jo Nesbø, unlike Larsson, is still alive and kicking out marvelous mystery novels, like The Snowman, the one Sara saw when she looked out the window of her bedroom. [page 6] Sara pulled herself up onto her knees. Got up and looked into the garden. And there, there was the face. She laughed out loud with relief. The face was white, with eyes and a mouth made with black pebbles, probably from the drive. And arms made from twigs off the apple trees. "Heavens," she gasped. "It's only a snowman." "Only a snowman" -- those words will never be repeated again in the course of and the curses of this novel. . . . This novel is a book gripper, so if you're reading on a Kindle, be careful not to break the delicate screen. Don't start it unless you have a day or two ahead with nothing planned. I would not want an air traffic controller to start this book one night before going to work on the graveyard shift and not be able to think of anything but whether the latest strawman is the Snowman. Or whether Harry is going down the hole as a scapegoat on this escapade. Or whether Rakel, his main squeeze, will survive her turn on the E-Ticket Snowman Ride. It's all in here. Don't do as I did with Stieg Larsson's book and wait for the movie. This book is by far more interesting and more fun than any movie. And its movie, when it inevitably arrives, will be more interesting if you have first suffered through the enjoyment of the book. The remainder of my review can be found in DIGESTWORLD ISSUE#118 by Bobby Matherne

"The Snowman", the seventh book in a series, was written by Jo Nesbo a Norwegian author and musician and translated by Don Bartlett a freelance translator living in Norfolk England. The novel features the detective Harry Hole first published in Norway in 1997 under the title "The Bat Man". Nesbo was born in 1960 and lives in Oslo. He graduated from the Norwegian School of Economics with a degree in Economics and Business Administration and worked for a time as a stockbroker before beginning his writing career. The story is written with anonymous narration and character dialog. The writing is straight forward and uncomplicated. The composition contains numerous references to places and things Norwegian that may be quite unfamiliar to the reader. In short, the story involves the mysterious disappearance and death of several women, their demise preceded by the construction of a snowman. The investigation into the deaths is headed by Harry Hole and his new partner Katrine Bratt. Harry has some notoriety for his investigative talent that previously brought a serial killer to justice and is now heading up the investigation into the current case. The story opens with young Jonas Becker calling in to report his mother, Birte, missing and the investigative team of Harry and Katrine at the home examining the circumstances surrounding her disappearance including interviewing the husband, Filip Becker, who just returned from an overnight trip. The following scene finds former detective, Gert Rafto taking a phone call and meeting the killer in Nordnes Park. From here, Harry and Bratt set about solving the case. The tale takes a number of twists and turns until the final pieces of the puzzle come together with a thrilling conclusion. This detective mystery was ok by all other standards of review. It's just that so many murder mysteries have been written, it's hard to get excited by another one. The writing was generally good, so the reader is moved along in the tale. The constant references to Norwegian street names that are impossible to say are a notable distraction. Harry Hole is not a particularly likeable fellow - a drunk, no less. It seems strange to depict a detective that operates in law enforcement to be inebriated or at best, hung over, while on the job. I suppose this may be indicative of a socialized country that doesn't value individual achievement much -why else would you do that? The underlying mystery in the tale is not particularly convincing either, but you will have to judge that for yourself for it is the basis for the murders after all. All in all, this novel did not excite me. It was no better than most and there are a lot that are better. If you are a murder mystery lover, you may find some reason to like it. Of my categories "Forgettable" -"Pleasurable-not memorable" - "Memorable" I would rate this Pleasurable-not memorable.

"The Snowman" by Jo Nesbo is -- in a word -- excellent. This story is, fellow readers, as good as a modern day police detective story can possibly get. You don't even have to like police detective stories to enjoy this tale, provided you can forgive the slightly over-the top gruesome aspects of the murders and the rather persistently psychologically self-absorbed Harry Hole (the very human hero, an Oslo police inspector). Then you'll enjoy it as much as I did. Yes, there are a few too many characters to keep track of, all with names that are difficult for an American to remember, a little too much detail about the weather and the various districts of Oslo, and a somewhat over-complicated plot. These are minor criticisms. I found this book a genuine "page turner", or in the electronic world of my Kindle, a "page-up clicker." (Yes, we need a new modern-day gizmo replacement phrase for "page turner.") "Snowman" is the 7th in the Harry Hole series and the 5th translated to English. I must say that the translations get better and better. I thought the first translated books were poorly done, and I wished back then that I could have read them in the original Norwegian. No longer have that feeling. What was great about the story was that I thought I had it all figured out - early even, but I was wrong time after time. Early in the story, you meet and conclude things about all those who would become "suspects," and Nesbo plays with your (my) tendency to jump to conclusions, as much as he did with his fellow officers' similar tendency. Harry's love interest Rakel is a primary character in this story, a feature about which I was pleased. But when her and her son Oleg's lives were endangered, her involvement got dicey. With some losses, injuries and new awareness, though, the ending was reasonably satisfying. It wasn't as if the cavalry rode in to save the (or most of the) good guys. Nope, here Harry Hole actually solves the case with his own brains and brawn - even if some of it was a bit phantasmagorical - including some almost physical magic, one might say, during the denouement. But at least circumstances or miracles don't win the day. Harry does. Kudos to Nesbo for making his flawed hero actually solve the case. It's a 4.7 on Amazon's scale, upgraded to 5 for the thrill factor and for its being simply very well written.

In mysteries, it is usually the person you least expect who committed the crime(s). Jo Nesbø had me fooled because I never suspected the actual perpetrator in The Snowman . I won't do a spoiler alert, although detective Harry Hole's ex-girlfriend becoming a victim did cross my mind. What was getting increasingly confusing was the first chapter, which occurs in Oslo, Norway on America's Election Night in 1980. No names were mentioned. The story then jumps to Oslo on America's Election Night in 2004. As I continued reading, I wondered if I had missed something, if I would have to reread Chapter 1. That was part of Nesbø's mystery, as at the end we learn why the first chapter was important. The premise is married women with children in Oslo are being abducted and murdered. The killer's signature is a snowman built outside each woman's home. These mirror killings in Bergen, Norway's second largest city, a number of years earlier, when the detective working on that case mysteriously disappeared. The potential suspects lead from one person to another from motive to motive. Each person comes with a caveat, or winds up dead. One key is 15% of children have a biological father that is not the one raising them. Adding intrigue is the beautiful woman detective that arrives from Bergen to become Hole's new partner. Hole is a recovering alcoholic, but is Norway's preeminent detective, who has studied serial killing with the FBI in the United States. His methods, and the fact they have to retract announcements The Snowman has been caught, rile the higher ups. I was ready to believe the contractor working on the mold in Harry's apartment was a suspect more than who it turned out to be. The Snowman will keep you guessing -- and now you know the first chapter is important -- and you should enjoy the psychological profiling of each suspect. It was inevitable I would have to read Jo Nesbø. Got a kick out of knowing some of the streets and neighborhoods in Oslo and Bergen. I was even in a supermarket mentioned. I was surprised to think there was this type of crime in Oslo. :) This is just one of many Harry Hole mysteries. The translation was good and not choppy.

Nesbo goes right for the jugular of everyone's worst fears; yes he does! A scary, thriller! Oh, and the boogyman is 'frost the snow man'! I just wanted to climb under my bed! I am recommending that this 'excellent read' occur on a bright sunny day in summer or on vacation in a warm, hot location. Me, I read it in the dead of winter, 10 degrees, snow on the ground, maybe 7 hours of sunlight, near the winter solstice and had to keep my husband awake at night reading; too creeped out to be up alone. Really, the house cracked twice, and had to wake him up I thought someone was outside! Nice.... Just love those reads that have the imagination jumping and making you just say 'Oh no, not that, please don't go there! Yup, begging the author not to go there, but alas Nesbo never holds back on delivering the 'punch of despair'. We find Harry in the same personal purgatory, I feel for the guy but he needs a new case to redirect his obsession of self destruction to a more redemptive obsessive challenge . Your going to need breathing breaks with this latest Harry Hole story. The Snowman builds the suspense, then suspends you over a cliff! Brutally thrilling. Damning emotionally, and the evil protagonist is insanely broken and only desires to unleash his pain on others; there maybe some compassion for this insanity, but a real reach for me. Oh. this snowman, is a chiller, no pun intended, no one escapes this story intact. Well written, excellent plot, and a mind-numbingly great read!

According to some reviewers, Scandanavian authors such as Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo and others are beating American hard-boiled mystery writers at their own game. Harry Hole, Nesbo's main character in THE SNOWMAN, is really only a modified version of Dirty Harry. He's a renegade who does things his own way, and he doesn't get along with the higher ups. He also has a drinking problem and a woman problem, as his main squeeze, Rakel, has dumped him for a doctor. Harry Hole is also unusual in that he's the only homicide investigator in Norway who has experience tracking down a serial killer, and he thinks he's got another one on his hands. Of course his superiors scoff at the idea. The story hops between Oslo and Bergen and Harry has a new woman partner, Katrine Bratt, to deal with. Harry notices right away that she's got quite a bit in common with him. Like Dirty Harry, Harry Hole still feels guilty about his last partner who was killed in the line of duty, something Harry feels he could've prevented. Harry's new case involves a perpetrator who leaves snowmen at the scene of the crime. These murders also seem to happen on the first snowfall of the year and the victims are married women who seem to have been carrying on affairs. There also seems to be a tie to a previous spate of murders and a homicide detective named Gert Rafto who has disappeared. There are lots of red herrings in THE SNOWMAN. If you`ve read a lot of mysteries you recognize these people for what they are and search the background for the least likely character. That might work. There's another American cliché happening here. The higher ups are always willing to close the case at the first sign of a likely suspect, and it's quite a black eye for them when they're wrong. This happens more than once, and they're looking for a fall guy. Guess who? So then, THE SNOWMAN is really just a modified version of an American murder mystery with a bunch of fjords, lots of snow, ski jumps, and strange sounding place names, and it's still better than what's on the New York Times best sellers list.

Loved this read. Jo Nesbo has easily become one of my favourite authors. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me THREE times?? Well done, Jo.

In his fifth novel starring Oslo police inspector Harry Hole and his fellow officers, author Jo Nesbo provides a complete surprise. The Snowman is more than a mystery, containing an element of horror that may soon make this his most popular novel among English speaking audiences, a breakthrough novel which may finally put to rest the misperception that the Norwegian Nesbo is some kind of "successor" to the Swedish Stieg Larsson. It takes nothing away from Larsson and his terrific Millenium trilogy to say that Nesbo is a more versatile and more polished writer who has now written sixteen novels since 1997, including three children's novels, all of them big successes in Scandinavia. He has received eight major prizes for his work and four "shortlist" nominations. If you enjoy tantalizing mysteries in the "Nordic Noir" genre and have not yet discovered Nesbo, I guarantee that when you do, you will not ever compare him to any other Scandinavian writer. The novel opens dramatically in 1980, as Sara, a young mother with her son in the car, makes a stop at the home of her lover for a last goodbye. Their love-making is observed by a snowman who looms at the window, and Sara's young son, waiting in the car, believes that they are all going to die. Nothing more is heard about this episode, but in 1992, a terrible murder and dismemberment takes place on top of a mountain in Bergen, the first of the disappearances/murders by a serial killer who strikes on the first day of snow each year from 1992 - 2004. Each crime is witnessed by a snowman who appears at the murder scene. Police inspector Harry Hole, in charge of the investigation, is soon being taunted by the snowman whose sole purpose seems to be to suggest that innocent people are behind the crimes. In the midst of all the turmoil involving the disappearances and the effects on the distraught families, Harry, an alcoholic, is trying, sometimes unsuccessfully, to stay on the straight and narrow. His long-time love, Rakel, has found peace with a new lover, and her relationship with Harry seems to be over. Other characters from past novels also appear here. Beate Lonn, an expert on facial recognition, is now caring for her baby son, born after the death of Halvorsen, who was her lover and Harry's partner. The obnoxious Magnus Skarre is still making Harry's life miserable. And a new female recruit, Katrine Bratt, is introduced and impresses Harry with her diligence and intelligence. It is impossible to describe the complexity and cleverness of this plot without risking spoilers, and the novel is too much fun to read to risk that. Suffice it to say, the novel is detailed and intelligent, and will keep even the most jaded mystery lover intrigued and wanting to see how it is all resolved. Medical mysteries run parallel with the murders, old mysteries from the cold case files get dredged up and investigated, characters are not who they appear to be, and who the snowman is and exactly how he is able to pull off his crimes with the whole country watching all keep the reader on tenterhooks. When the last little piece finally falls into place at the end, every detail in the novel suddenly makes sense--and provides a satisfying sense of finality to this challenging case. A non-stop thriller that may very well keep you up reading till the wee hours--and great fun! Mary Whipple

Good book, exciting story

La storia è in pieno stile Jo Nesbo. Tanti colpi di scena, e un Ispettore Hole sempre molto sensibile. Difficile interrompere la lettura, anche in inglese. Non so se questo sia il primo romanzo della serie, ma so che è stato il quarto romanzo che ho acquistato di questo autore. Ho il quinto da iniziare quindi un saluto e buona lettura.

I was quite fascinated with the plot. Jo Nesbo delivers once again.