A quick blog post about a book I finished a couple of days ago and that I truly enjoyed. I first didn’t plan to blog about it, but on the plane today I was thinking about the novel again and thought it was actually so good that I should share it with my readers. If you love the Stieg Larsson trilogy you should read Jo Nesbo’s latest thriller The Snowman, set in a snowy Oslo and Bergen. It’s one of those books that you want to keep on reading, it only takes a couple of pages to get completely absorbed in the story and after that you can’t put it down anymore.
The book is a serial killer whodunit, in which detective Harry Hole tries to solve the disappearance of several mothers that have one thing in common: a snowman was built outside their house around the time they went missing. The police think that they have solved the crime quickly, but Harry is not convinced and keeps on searching. Even though I can’t relate to Harry at all (exactly like I had with the main characters in Stieg Larssons novels), I think it’s a great novel with a well thought out storyline and an unexpected ending. If you’re into thrillers give this one a try for your summer holiday – or wait until your winter holiday, somehow it feels weird to read about cold and snow when it’s 35 degrees outside.
what about the mold guy? maybe I’m thick, but I don’t quite understand his signifigance.
(Spoiler alert, don’t read this before reading the book!)
In my opinion the mold guy’s function is to make the reader believe that he is the killer and make the novel more scary. Near the end I thought Harry may have dreamed that there was a mold guy but that he demolished the wall himself (he said he was sleepwalking and found himself with a hammer in his hand in the middle of the night). But then the final paragraph shows that the mold man is likely some kind of lunatic that goes around telling people that there is mold in their homes and then repairs it for them. It’s just a coincidence that he knocked on Harry’s door during the murder investigation.
My initial suspicion was that he may be the killer, especially when the figure “8” was drawn on Harry’s wall, but the end page make me think it may be a set up for another novel. That said, I could be missing the relevance entirely
The mold man turned a wall because he cut himself – youll have to paint the whole wall red –
this made me think A) he was the killer B) he’s put something in Harry’s walls. I loved the book but the last page just had me like why?!
The mold man confuses me. I thought he was the killer and the dead bodies were in Harry’s apartment walls. He appears in the lastpage as well