I was just sitting here this morning ringing up a customer…my usual banter–thanks for coming in, come back to see us! Have a great holiday weekend! Holiday weekend? Wait a minute what is that?
Ah yes, Memorial Day, the beginning of summer. I decided that this weekend will be the perfect time to make sure that you all know about Harry Hole. Harry is someone that y’all can get acquainted with this weekend and hang out with him all summer long. Jo Nesbo is the creator of the Harry Hole series and while all his books have gotten rave reviews, his newest novel, The Snowman, is going to be the book that takes him out into the public eye. So far four of Nesbo’s novels have been translated into English and we are so happy about that and the great thing is that Nesbo’s three previous books are all in paperback so you can take them to the beach!
This novel takes the reader between the last days of WWII and modern day Oslo while recovering alcoholic, Inspector Harry Hole, chases a neo-Nazi who has escaped prison on a technicality. After overhearing something on surveillance Harry Hole is drawn into a twisted mystery with roots in Norway’s dark past of collaborating with Nazi Germany and now 60 years later disgraced old soldiers are being murdered one by one.
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Harry awakens with a serious headache, no cell phone and brief memories of a drunken night with Anna, an ex girlfriend who called out of the blue. He and a young detective have been investigating a string of bank robberies one of which ended with a bank teller being shot. Harry is dealing with his relapse while trying to solve one murder when he himself becomes a suspect in the mysterious death of Anna. After tying the bank robberies to a notorious bank robber (who is in jail) he soon begins to wonder if Anna’s demise is connected some how.
Harry has been assigned to solve the murder of a woman with one of her fingers cut off and a tiny red star-shaped diamond placed under her eyelid. He also has a new partner, Tom Waaler, whom Harry hates and thinks is responsible for the murder of his partner. When another woman is found murdered in the same circumstances Harry realizes that they have a serial killer on their hands and his determination to catch the killer and expose Waller’s crimes will lead him down paths that he never expected. He will be forced to make difficult decisions about his future while both cases merge together in the shadows.
The first snow has fallen in Oslo and a young boy awakens in the night calling for his mother. Where is she? Out on the lawn a mysterious snowman appeared earlier in the day and now Jonas sees that his mothers pink scarf adorns it’s neck. Harry suspects a link between the disappearance of Jonas’s mother, at least a dozen other women and a letter which he received all on the day of the first snow fall that November. As the case goes on Harry is pulled into a ‘game’ where the rules are devised and constantly revised by the killer.
I hate making comparisons of authors because frankly, I’m not very good at it. But if you have liked the other Scandinavian authors, i.e., Henning Mankell and Steig Larsson and Michael Connelly’s character, Harry Bosch, then I know that you will be thrilled to be introduced to Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole.
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