The Snowman: A Harry Hole Thriller, Book 7

By: Jo Nesbø

Narrated by: Sean Barrett

Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

Now a major film starring Michael Fassbender.
36 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.

©2010 Jo Nesbo (P)2010 Random House Audio

Interesting but a little long winded

I liked the story on the whole, it was a mix of original ideas and terrible cliches. Though in all honesty it was mostly cliches. The writing isn’t bad, and I enjoyed the dialogues. It did feel a bit too much like a book of a thousand endings and I even found myself getting a bit bored of some of the plot lines. I wish they had left out the Katrina story. It just slowed the plot down.

Gripping page turner from Sweden!!

Drama, Intrigue and horrible murders. I could not put aside this audio book. At times I was genuinely frightened by the scenes. Murder in Scandinavia will be your new obsession, after you read the Snowman. Sean Barrett was superb.

The best Jo Nesbo Novel

If you could sum up The Snowman in three words, what would they be?

Action, Surprising, Clever

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

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Have you listened to any of Sean Barrett’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

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Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I could not get myself away from this story! Listening open mouthed!!! Really good!

Any additional comments?

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pleasantly surprised

never really been a fan of this type of story (thriller/whodunnit/airport-ish novel) - I decided to try it out because I had read some good reviews of the author. I went into it with low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised = this was a good "read" - the pace was great, it was easy to engage with the characters, characters were believable & the details were gruesome without being too gratuitous. I worked out the bad guy a fair way before the end, but this in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the story.

I imagine if you like murder mystery/thrillers with a bit of "smart" then you will enjoy this.
The narrator did a fantastic job, and I was really pleased with my purchase.

Gripping

This book like all the other Jo Nesbo books will keep you on the edge of your seat. Harry Hole is one of my favorite detectives in fiction. Sean Barrett’s narration is spot on!

Gripping

If you could sum up The Snowman: A Harry Hole Thriller, Book 7 in three words, what would they be?

Great twists and turns

What other book might you compare The Snowman: A Harry Hole Thriller, Book 7 to and why?

Compares with The Bat with the story twists

Which scene was your favorite?

Favourite scene was when Harry arrived at the house to save his woman and her son

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

My husband and I must listen to the rest of the series!

Twirling whirling plot twists

Jo Nesbo rides the waves created by poor dead Steig Larsson. Norway is not Sweden, but close enough for the publishers to hope that the magic of one trilogy will stick to another set of crime novels. Nesbo writes improbable and convoluted plot twists I cannot help but think are meant to appeal to the throngs of jaded thriller junkies who need a constant stream of fiction in their lives but can no longer be surprised to a straight forward good read. Harry Hole (pronounced Huy-youler, not HOLE) is a drunk and I cannot fathom why his girlfriend Raquel puts up with him excepting underneath her competence she must be just as damaged as he is. Why does the murderer compulsively build snow people at every scene? Perhaps a more appropriate question is why would I care? One thing I will say is that with a Nesbo book it is impossible to figure out prior to the end of the novel who done it. Because there is such a mesmerizing array of twirling red herrings so as to confuse even the most seasoned fiction reader. There is a disjointed quality to Nesbo's narrative that keeps one reading until the end, but ultimately when you finish the last page and finally know who did what to whom, you can only snort to yourself, turn off the itty bitty book light and punch your bed mate in the kidneys until they scootch over to their side of the bed. I enjoyed the Larsson books but will definitely give the rest of the Nesbo books a miss.