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“Investigator Harry Hole is on the hunt for a serial killer. Women are turning up dead around Oslo, leaving Harry obsessively searching for clues. With each murder, a mysterious snowman is left behind, taunting the frustrated investigator. Is Harry on the right track in finding this maniacal killer or does he need to start looking in his own backyard? This is an intense thriller that is guaranteed to keep you up at night, especially during the dark winter months. I couldn’t sleep until I finished it! And, my kids are no longer allowed to build snowmen. Super scary!”
— Kristin • McLean & Eakin Booksellers
Summary
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Inspector Harry Hole tracks a Norwegian serial killer in this “fiendishly complex and terrifically entertaining” (The New York Times Book Review) installment of the New York Times bestselling series.
"Maddeningly addictive.” —Vanity Fair
One night, after the first snowfall of the year, a boy named Jonas wakes up and discovers that his mother has disappeared. Only one trace of her remains: a pink scarf, his Christmas gift to her, now worn by the snowman that inexplicably appeared in their yard earlier that day. Inspector Harry Hole suspects a link between the missing woman and a suspicious letter he’s received. The case deepens when a pattern emerges: over the past decade, eleven women have vanished—all on the day of the first snow. But this is a killer who makes his own rules ... and he’ll break his pattern just to keep the game interesting, as he draws Harry ever closer into his twisted web. With brilliantly realized characters and hair-raising suspense, international bestselling author Jo Nesbø presents his most chilling case yet—one that will test Harry Hole to the very limits of his sanity.
Reviews
“Jo Nesbø is my new favorite thriller writer and Harry Hole my new hero.” —Michael Connelly“With Henning Mankell having written his last Wallander novel and Stieg Larsson no longer with us, I have had to make the decision on whom to confer the title of best current Nordic writer of crime fiction. After finishing Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman, I hesitate no longer . . . This is crime writing of the highest order, in which the characters are as strong as the story, where an atmosphere of evil permeates, and the tension begins in the first chapter and never lets up.” —Times (UK)
“The Snowman is a superb thriller—smart, stylish, beautifully paced and meticulously plotted . . . Nesbø is such an insightful portraitist that Hole and all the secondary characters are convincing at just about every bloody turn . . . The psychological aspects of the novel are on a par with Ruth Rendell’s inspector Wexford mysteries. Ultimately, though, what sets Nesbø apart is his ability to keep the pages turning with such intellectual dexterity.” —Newsday
“Every now and then, a truly exceptional crime novel comes along, something so gripping that it recalls classics such as The Silence of the Lambs. Jo Nesbø has pulled it off with The Snowman . . . [which] establishes him as a writer of rare ingenuity and total confidence.” —Sunday Times (UK)
“Irresistibly addictive . . . This is reading as you experienced it in childhood, without any gap between eye and mind, but with the added pleasures that adult plots and adult characters can bring . . . It is Nesbø’s plots—brilliantly conceived, carefully worked out, and complicatedly satisfying—that finally make [his books] unputdownable.” —Slate
“Nesbø is being hailed as the next Stieg Larsson or Henning Mankell . . . Apt comparisons, but they don’t go far enough. This is simply the best detective novel this reviewer has read in years . . . Nesbø’s latest thriller reads like a symphony, from the thundering first chords that pull the reader into a magical world through the delicately enticing development in which motifs and story strands are woven together leading to a pounding, furious conclusion.” —Library Journal (starred)
“Erica Jong meets Stephen King meets, yes, Stieg Larsson in this superb thriller.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred)
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