Jo Nesbo

The night the first snow falls a young boy wakes to find his mother gone. He walks through the silent house, but finds only wet footprints on the stairs. In the garden looms a solitary figure: a snowman bathed in cold moonlight, its black eyes glaring up at the bedroom windows. Round its neck is his mother's pink scarf.

The Snowman

Very intense. Captures your attention from the beginning. 

Katya Vinokurova

gruesome! Quite proud of myself for guessing the culprit 😎

Molly Bridge

Joana Francener

Quite disappointed that I cracked the mystery within the second or third chapter of the book. Read through just to confirm my suspicion and was not surprised to find I was right. Therefore all the previous plot twists didn't make any sense whatsoever. 

Not to say that I don't enjoy Jo Nesbøs style of writing, quite the contrary, just disappointing to have it all so clear from the beginning.

Shaun Clark

Tremendous. Not often - hardly ever - do I rate 5 stars but this book is exceptional.

The strength of the writing, characterisation and plot twists seduce the reader into a completely original tale and never lets go.

Creepy, pensive and a helluva lot of content make The Snowman a beacon of hope amongst so many rote Scandi-noir or police procedurals

Alexa M

i thought this was very interesting and surprising but good god was it LONG

When the first snow falls, a snowman appears in yard and a woman dies. This occurs in Norway for years before Detective Harry Hole begins to suspect a serial killer is on the loose.

This was chilling, creepy, and kept me turning the pages. I quite enjoyed it.

Cheri McElroy

When the first snow falls, a snowman appears in yard and a woman dies. This occurs in Norway for years before Detective Harry Hole begins to suspect a serial killer is on the loose.

This was chilling, creepy, and kept me turning the pages. I quite enjoyed it.

Steffi J

** spoiler alert **
           Okay, first off, this thriller is insanely hard to put down. I had a few guesses about who the real culprit was and I guessed right when I got to 20% of the book. The first thought that occurred to me was, "Really?"

***SPOILERS***
I was disappointed when I had correctly guessed who The Snowman was. And to be honest, it made me think that the author was trying too hard to make the real culprit someone the reader wasn't expecting at all. And the writer kinda put him in the background for so long, hardly appearing throughout the book at all, it kind of made me think that the author's even trying to make the reader forget about him, so the reveal would be extremely jarring.

The thing that I liked most about the author is how cleverly he described the murder scenes, without putting in a lot of disgusting, gruesome detail - he leaves just enough to allow the readers' imaginations to roam, which makes the murders even more horrifying.

Dana Kraft

A good read for what it is, a serial killer thriller. I picked this up because I'm trying to read more books translated to English. This book technically fits the bill, but if it had been set in the US or Canada, I'm not sure it would have been any different. I guess there's a reason I don't read many thrillers.

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOVIE STARRING MICHAEL FASSBENDER OVER 33 MILLION BOOKS SOLD WORLDWIDE The first snow will come. A young boy wakes to find his mother missing. Their house is empty but outside in the garden he sees his mother's favourite scarf - wrapped around the neck of a snowman. And then he will appear again. As Harry Hole and his team begin their investigation they discover 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 it seems that Harry's worst suspicions are confirmed: for the first time in his career Harry finds himself confronted with a serial killer operating on his home turf. ...he will have taken someone else.

A Harry Hole Thriller (Oslo Sequence 5)

Nooshin

Predictable and a tad too long. But it did indeed scare the shit out of me more than a few times.

Melody Izard

I don't like to start several books into a series, but we'd had this on our book shelf for so long I caved. 

So I guess the snowman itself is not creepy, its the killer who uses the snowman as his calling card who is the ghoul. But he is always just sitting in that cold world announcing a murder, maybe wearing a scarf or something more menacing. 

I guess I'll go back and read The Bat.

This New York Times bestseller is soon to be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures starring Michael Fassbender and opening wide October 13, 2017. Inspector Harry Hole is tested to the very limits of his sanity by a killer with a strange signature: a snowman. One night, after the year's first snowfall, a boy named Jonas wakes up and discovers that his mother has disappeared. Only one trace of her remains: a pink scarf, his Christmas gift to her, now worn by the snowman that inexplicably appeared in their yard earlier that day. Inspector Harry Hole suspects a link between the missing woman and a suspicious letter he's received. The case deepens when a pattern emerges: over the past decade, eleven women have vanished--all on the day of the first snow. But this is a killer who makes his own rules, and he'll break his pattern just to keep the game interesting, as he draws Harry ever closer into his twisted web.

The Snowman (Movie Tie-In Edition)

Carol Bailey

I liked the plot, but I did find it a bit difficult to keep track of the characters. Some of it was the names but it took me until the 40% mark to get into the flow and figure out the chapters/characters were being laid out.
I did not anticipate the ending at all which was a good thing.

Toni Turner

I think I would have liked this more if I didn't have to read it for class, and I wasn't in a slump ughh

Anne Sofie Stavad

I liked the writing, some of the descriptions were quite thrilling... But I figured out the plot quite quickly
So 2.75

One night, after the year's first snowfall, a boy named Jonas wakes up and discovers that his mother has disappeared. Only one trace of her remains: a pink scarf, his Christmas gift to her, now worn by the snowman that inexplicably appeared in their yard earlier that day. Inspector Harry Hole suspects a link between the missing woman and a suspicious letter he's received. The case deepens when a pattern emerges: over the past decade, eleven women have vanished--all on the day of the first snow. But this is a killer who makes his own rules . . . and he'll break his pattern just to keep the game interesting, as he draws Harry ever closer into his twisted web.

It was a refreshing mystery of a murderer. I have personally not read anything with this type of crime before and I liked the angle of it. 

I don't know if it is the result of the area from which these authors hail, but it really reminded me of the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo books. If you liked those these will seem like a faster paced thriller.

Don Bartlett

Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose scarf is found on a mysteriously built snowman, a case that is complicated by subsequent abductions and a menacing letter.

Amber Laha

Far and twisted mystery, that hooked me and kept me reading. But the unnecessary injections of American politics and the overtones of misogyny made it hard for me not to dnf it many times.

Anastaciya

The movie is filmed beautifully, but the book is still better.

Jemima Scott

Vanessa Bintou

Nice plot and exciting book. I liked it overall, but I figured who the murderer was very early...

The Snowman

Reviews