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Book Review of The Snowman (Harry Hole, Bk 7)

The Snowman (Harry Hole, Bk 7)
reviewed on + 289 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 6


This was my first Harry Hole mystery thriller but hopefully not my last! Over the years, women have gone missing on the day of a first snowfall. Harry Hole, the only Oslo police investigator with experience catching serial killers in Norway, is alerted to this pattern by a mysterious letter about the Snowman. Thus begins a superb thriller by Norwegian Jo Nesbø; this story has many twists where it seems the case is solved, but that can't be true because there are many pages to go. I appreciated the flashbacks and fragments from perspectives other than Harry's which at first don't fit well, but make sense later. Harry is an interestingly flawed, alcoholic character who uses both intuition and solid reasoning to solve this case. Be warned that there are non-prudish sex scenes and a gruesome ending. Although I was able for once to guess the villain, I thoroughly enjoyed this Scandinavian thriller.