The Snowman
Oslo detective Harry Hole catches a missing-persons case in November when the first snow falls and a married mother of one vanishes from her home. The only thing left in the yard is a snowman that should not be there, and Harry connects it to an old letter he received about a killer who would surface with the snow. The investigation pulls in a new detective from Bergen, a string of similar disappearances stretching back across Norway, and the kind of pattern that suggests the killer has been watching Harry for years. Nesbo wrote it as the seventh Harry Hole book, and it works as the entry point most readers take into the series.
What you might want to know about The Snowman
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Oslo detective Harry Hole hunts a serial killer who leaves a snowman at every scene across a bleak Norwegian winter in the bestselling entry to Nesbo's Harry Hole series.
Yes. A 2017 film adaptation directed by Tomas Alfredson and starring Michael Fassbender was released. The film was widely panned by critics and fans of the book.
The Snowman is the seventh book in Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series. While the series is heavily serialized, The Snowman became the most popular Harry Hole novel internationally.
The Snowman was written by Jo Nesbo, published in 2007 by Vintage.
The Snowman is 550 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Snowman takes most readers 8 to 12 hours to finish.
The Snowman is a standalone novel by Jo Nesbo, not part of a series.
The Snowman is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.