Detective Harry Hole is the only FBI-trained serial killer specialist in Norway. Living alone in a dank apartment in Oslo, he trudges through life determined to stay sober while the love of his life, Rakel, has moved in with Mathias, a successful plastic surgeon.
He gets assigned a case where a couple of young mothers have been abducted, and in each case there has been a snowman left at the scene by the abductor. Digging through cold cases, he discovers this is in fact Norway’s earliest known serial killer, with one woman going missing every year after the first snow, with only a snowman to mark the site of abduction.
Hole is joined by officer Katrine Bratt from the Bergen PD, and they work the case together and identify that the common link between all the women was that their partners were NOT the father of their children. After several close calls, and suspects ending dead, Bratt herself is suspected and jailed. But as the murders continue, Harry knows they are close, very close.
Harry is up against a very intelligent killer, and the tension never lets up for a moment, keeping the reader on the edge of the chair from the get go. The sombre atmosphere, coupled with the grim, noir-inspired story telling adds to the tension. The twists and turns are masterful; Hole identifies several plausible suspects through the course of the book, and in each case the real killer dispatches the suspect too. An excellent read from Nesbø.