The Snowman

Those Scandinavians love their murder mysteries. From Norway comes The Snowman, by Jo Nesbo, which is part of a series featuring the alcoholic, self-loathing detective Harry Hole. It is about a serial killer who leaves a snowman as his (or her) calling card.

That Norway doesn't seem to have serial killers has not stopped Nesbo. It is pointed out, more than once, that Norway has never had one, but Hole (perhaps in an earlier novel), got training on how to deal with them in the U.S. and Australia. As an American, I can be so proud that we lead the world in serial killers!

The book is very well done for this sort of thing. Just the notion of a snowman in a yard facing the house (I had never thought of it, but I imagine most kids build snowmen so they are facing the street) sends a frisson of chill up and down the spine. Nesbo is also very grisly in his descriptions of the killings. One woman is beheaded with a heated wire used for birthing calves and her head is placed on top of a snowman. In another scene, our intrepid detective and his female partner go to an abandoned cabin, force open a locked refrigerator, and find a long missing man who has been altered to look like a snowman (a carrot in place of his nose, for example).

Though this book is a lot of ghoulish fun, it does go on a bit long. I know the Norwegians love herring, but there are too many red ones here--there are not one, not two, not three, but four false suspects. If I were Norwegian, I would have no trust in the police department.

The translation, by Don Bartlett, is also crisp and effortless. Characterizing Scandinavian thrillers, there is a lot of pop culture references, but unlike say, Stieg Larsson, it's done to good effect: "The fuzzy dice hanging from the mirror were original Fuzzy Dice, which expressed the right mix of genuine affection for and ironical distance from a bygone American culture and aesthetic that perfectly suited a Norwegian farmer's son who had grown up with Jim Reeves in one ear and the Ramones in the other, and loved both."

Hole, in the great tradition of the loner hero, could have been played by Clint Eastwood, circa 1974. He is tortured by the crimes he investigates, and is dour, as a Norwegian might be expected to be, and has a thing for Slipknot. If this were to be made into a film, I would hope the Norwegian setting would be included, even if they have no serial killers: "Harry stared at the road, at the leafless trees along Huk Averny leading down to the sea and the museums for what Norwegians regarded as the nation's greatest achievements: a voyage in a raft across the Pacific Ocean and failed attempt to reach the North Pole."