Book Review: The Snowman

Spoilers!

If a baby is a perfect miracle, then life is degeneration. If a snowman is a pristine manifestation of snow, then … Jo Nesbø’s 2007 book (translated into English in 2010), The Snowman, reflects the way in which, ultimately, the snow is ethereal. Or to put it another way, all humans degenerate, some just degenerate more sinisterly. The Snowman, the seventh book in Nesbø’s Harry Hole detective series set in Oslo, Norway, was my first of his.

It’s so interesting to read books set in countries outside of the United States, but that still orient so much of themselves to the United States. American culture is ingrained everywhere, and of course, American politics necessarily envelopes countries like Norway, too. Tangentially, in The Snowman, American elections, which also happen to coincide with the first snowfall in Norway, becomes the ritual timing for a serial killer, Norway’s first. That last point is important, too. Harry is famous, or infamous, depending on your perspective, in Norway for being the only police detective trained by the FBI in hunting serial killers, and apparently, he caught one in Australia. But everyone else in Norway is skeptical of how Hole’s hellbent on catching one in Norway. The Scandinavian countries don’t have serial killers, c’mon!

Harry is a recovering alcoholic, as police detectives tend to be, but he’s smart in that way I must compare him to Hercule Poirot, but with the added twist that he bucks his bosses (on the serial killer issue and otherwise, like when they want to make him a scapegoat for the press). That makes him a prime target, though, from a serial killer who wants to test their, uh, mettle against him. Our serial killer has an issue with women, as serial killers tend have such a proclivity, and in particular, women who sleep around on their husbands to the point where, the husbands are fathers to children who aren’t theirs by blood. The first killings happened in 1980, and now in 2004, the killings have started up again. Inexplicably, the bodies are never found, no evidence otherwise, and the only sighting seems to be a large snowman near the scene. For the longest time, however, because the bodies weren’t found, people assumed these women with husbands and children just went missing. Nobody suspected foul play, much less a serial killer connecting them all. A letter addressed to Harry evoking the snowman draws him into elucidating such connective tissue, plus, y’know, the head of one of the women being discovered.

Katrine Bratt, who joins Harry’s team, pushes Harry to realize the connection, including to a previous police detective Harry’s molded after, Rafto, who also went missing and was even presumed to have killed a woman, hence his “missing.” It turns out that Katrine was his daughter and insinuated herself into the investigation because she knew Harry was the only detective capable of catching the killer and clearing her father’s name. Unfortunately, that has the side effect of the Oslo police, including Harry, thinking she’s the killer.

Like Katrine, Nesbø throws a few red herrings along the way, including the husband of one of the missing women because he tried to confront the man she was sleeping with and instead accosted the wife; a plastic surgeon to the rich and famous, who had seen both women and their children, and later seemingly committed suicide; and a loudmouthed, womanizing journalist, Arve Støp, who was sleeping with the women and likely the father of the children. Those red herrings meant Katrine almost killed each succeeding red herring, thinking them the killer of her father (only leading credence to her being the killer). The killer was not the husband, the plastic surgeon, Støp, or Katrine.

It was the guy I suspected from the get-go: Mathias, the new boyfriend of Rakel’s, who was Harry’s former lover. Given how smart this serial killer was presented as, I figured he’d want to insinuate himself into the investigation (as they suspected Katrine had), and what better way than through Harry’s former lover? More than that, though, Nesbø dropped a few hints throughout the book, including Mathias having a connection to the plastic surgeon, giving this weird monologue to Harry about going out in a blaze of glory via suicide, a pain in his side that could have only been from one of his victims fighting back, and then later toward the end, him not having nipples like the man at the beginning of the book a woman was sleeping with. Turns out, that woman was Mathias’ mother, who was impregnated by this man and his “dirty genes” were given to Mathias, and so, his own mother became his first victim and the model for all his victims thereafter: women who slept around siring children by different men than their husbands. And better yet for Mathias, Rakel herself fits this mold since she’s been sleeping with Harry and had her son, Oleg, with a different man. Mathias also killed Rafto because he learned he needed to take out the man most likely to catch him, hence why he also went after Harry later.

Being the dogged detective that he is, Harry is able to knock down the red herrings, ascertain not only that Mathias is the killer, but how he’s been hiding the bodies (“donating” them to science), and of course, save Rakel and Oleg in the book’s tense climax. He also prevents Mathias, who was suffering from a degenerative form of scleroderma, from killing himself. For his troubles, Harry did lose his middle finger to Mathias’ weapon of choice (some sort of garrote-type weapon), which is kind of morbidly funny, given Harry’s disposition. The funniest thing, though, is that for all his smarts, you would think taking the time necessary to build a giant snowman in front of the house you’re stalking would have spelled Mathias’ downfallen, and yet.

The Snowman was a frosty good time in Oslo, trying to figure out exactly what was going on and why. Sure, I suspected Mathias, but I didn’t know for certain, and I didn’t know all of the “how” and “why” behind it. And who knows with books like this, Nesbø might have killed off Rakel and/or Oleg. Despite a name that makes me giggle, Harry made for a great detective to follow because he’s cerebral and daring, a great combination. I’m sure I’ll be reading more Nesbø from here on out.