2011; 530 pages. Book Seven
(out of 11) in the Inspector Harry
Hole series New Author? : Yes. Murder-Mystery; Police Procedural;
Scandinavian Crime Noir. Overall Rating
: 9½*/10.
Birte
Becker, wife of Professor Filip Becker, and mother of a teenage son named Jonas, has
disappeared. Inspector Harry Hole of the
Oslo police suspects foul play, although the possibility of her running off
willingly, say, to be with a lover in an affair, cannot be dismissed, since
there’s no sign of a forced entry or of any violence in the Becker household
The
only thing out of the ordinary in the case so far is Birte’s pink scarf. Someone, maybe Birte herself, has draped it
around the neck of a snowman in the front yard.
The snowman’s nothing special, a carrot nose, a stick for an arm, and
some black stones for the eyes and mouth.
But curiously, Jonas says he didn’t build it.
So
who did? And why?
What’s To Like...
The Snowman is a police-procedural murder-mystery set
in the greater Oslo, Norway area. There
is some jumping around of the timing – 1980, 1992, and 2004 (the present) – but
it doesn’t get confusing because Jo Nesbo alerts you to any change in the “where
and when” at the beginning of each chapter.
Harry
Hole is your standard antihero protagonist.
He drinks too much, smokes too much, has his moments of arrogance, and
can be lippy to superiors and bossy to subordinates at ill-advised times. But he’s also the best detective on the
police force, and there’s even a possibility that the murderer is deliberately
baiting him with clues and messages in order to make this a personal duel.
The
storyline is laid out perfectly, and I greatly appreciate that in any murder
mystery. There’s a slew of characters to
meet and grow suspicious about, and numerous red herrings to trip up Hole and
the rest of the police department. Indeed,
both they (and
I) frequently jumped the gun in thinking they’d caught the killer,
only to have to eat their words when it turned out to be not so. These “false trails” are essential for
keeping a 500-page novel from suffering from slow spots, and it worked nicely here.
There are some neat details.
Harry’s (and/or the author’s) musical
tastes are excellent, with some quick nods to Slipknot,
Michael Stipe (REM), the little-known Jason
and The Scorchers, and the overture to Also
Sprach Zarathustra. You’ll learn
about Fahr’s Syndrome (wiki it), and
the obscure winter sport of Curling. I
also became aware of a culture twitch in Scandinavia – apparently they like to
pride themselves for being too civilized to have a serial killer running
around. Such savagery is confined to the
more primitive parts of the world, like America.
The ending might be called "standard" – the real killer is found out,
but escapes for an action-packed finale.
Yet it was done so well, I didn’t mind that it was formulaic. There is some cussing, as would be expected
in a gritty police procedural, and some sex, so you probably shouldn’t let
little Jimmy and Susie read The Snowman. The is a standalone novel, as well as part of
an 11-book series.
Excerpts...
“Anyway, where
did he get hold of this loop gizmo? If
it isn’t approved, I mean?”
“We can start
looking there,” Harry said. “Would you
check that out, Skarre?”
“I said I don’t
believe all that stuff.”
“Sorry, I didn’t
make myself clear. I meant to say: Check
it out, Skarre. Anything else, Holm?” (loc. 1643)
“You didn’t like Starship Troopers?”
“That’s because
it’s a crap macho film.”
“It’s satire,”
Harry said.
“Of what?”
“American
society’s inherent fascism. The Hardy
Boys meet Hitler Youth.”
“Come on,
Harry. War on giant insects on a remote
planet?”
“Fear of
foreigners.” (loc. 2208)
Kindle Details...
The
Snowman sells for $9.99 at Amazon, although I picked
it up when it was temporarily discounted.
The other books in the series go for $5.99-$13.99. Jo Nesbo also has a series of e-books for
kids, all involving, of all things, farts.
These go for $6.99-$7.57.
If every baby was a perfect miracle, life was basically a process
of degeneration.” (loc.
6922)
I’ve
been wanting to check out Jo Nesbo’s series for quite some time now, since I’m
a huge fan of Scandinavian Police Procedurals, and the Swedish contingent
thereof – Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo, are
sadly all dead or retired.
It
is every bookaholic’s delight to discover a new author that fully meets his
hopes and expectations, and Jo Nesbo was exactly that sort of find for me. The writing, translating, and storyline in The Snowman were all great, and I’m thrilled to
pieces to have a whole new series, with a burnt-out protagonist and a detective
team that isn’t above squabbling, to solve cases alongside.
9½ Stars. Time to hit my local library and see how many
Jo Nesbo book/e-books they have.
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