Goodreads: The Snowman
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller, Fiction
Panda Rating:

Soon the first snow will come
A young boy wakes to find his mother missing. Outside, he sees her favourite scarf – wrapped around the neck of a snowman.
And then he will appear again
Detective Harry Hole soon discovers that an alarming number of wives and mothers have gone missing over the years.
And when the snow is gone…
When a second woman disappears, Harry’s worst suspicion is confirmed: a serial killer is operating on his home turf.
…he will have taken someone else

This was my first Harry Hole novel and my first book by Nesbø, and while I enjoyed The Snowman and its compelling plot, I also found I struggled with the writing and it took me longer than expected to get through the book. I enjoyed it though and I’m even curious enough to one day check out more of Nesbø’s novels, especially the ones involving Harry Hole! I’m certainly wondering what’ll happen to him next.

This was one of the more densely written thrillers that I’ve ever read (admittedly I don’t read that many) and at times it was quite trying to parse through the text. I wonder if that might partly be because of the translation and how maybe certain Norwegian sayings don’t translate well to English? Or maybe it’s simply the fact that I do tend to struggle with the writing of Scandinavian authors? However, it made certain parts come across as stilted and slightly awkward…

That said, I still found myself enjoying this thriller. It’s quite gory and with the descriptiveness in the writing, it can present quite a visual (especially if you have an overactive imagination such as myself!) but I wouldn’t expect anything less from a thriller written by a Scandinavian author. This might be me generalising a little bit, but I’ve found the ones I’ve read don’t shy away from explicit scenes! Even though the writing style was a bit difficult at times, I could still appreciate the complexity of the plot and how the story wove together seemingly random scenes inserted at the start. Several times I thought I had the story figured out but each twist Nesbø introduced eventually disproved all my theories! Looking back now after finishing it, I can see how people who read thrillers often would probably be able to figure this out quickly, but I only connected the dots much closer to the very end.

I didn’t love any of the characters and I found myself struggling with some of the sexism that came from the majority male police cast (I felt that really played into the stereotype)… But I did come to like Harry Hole! Despite his alcoholism, his anti-social personality, and his messed up love-life, I liked how messy, real and relatable his character was. Although I honestly often got lost in the process of how Hole unraveled the mystery (and it was one of my initial gripes, but I just rolled with it and in the end it worked for me lol).

Overall, I’m glad I finally read this thriller as it’s been sitting on my shelf for a while! Perfect season for it too, I guess? It’s creepy enough that I had to turn on an extra light to keep reading, but I’m sure a lot of people (especially those who love reading thrillers) would be good with the creepiness level. I know it was made into a movie though I don’t know how successful it was, but I’m curious enough to check out the trailer! I’m also curious about how the personal side of the story ended for Harry and what it means for the next book in his series, so I think I might eventually pick it up.

Have you read The Snowman or is it on your TBR?