"The Snowman" Book Discussion

The library will sponsor a discussion of The Snowman by Jo Nesbø on Monday, April 25. This is the third and final program in a series of book discussions featuring Scandinavian mysteries. The discussion will begin at 7:00 PM and will be free and open to the public. Copies of the book are available to borrow at the library.

The Snowman is the seventh volume in Nesbø’s series featuring Oslo police detective Harry Hole, a brilliant, cynical, and driven investigator who struggles with alcohol. The Snowman has been termed the author’s “masterpiece” by The New Yorker and “the most terrifying and certainly the most addictive book in the whole series” by Slate. In this book, Hole chases Norway’s first serial killer, a murderer of young mothers who leaves a snowman at each scene.

One of Norway’s bestselling and most popular writers, Nesbø is also the author of a series of books for children featuring an eccentric professor named Doctor Proctor, and a series of thrillers featuring a criminal named Olav Johansen. He is also a (literal) rock star: lead vocalist and songwriter for the Norwegian rock band Di Derre. Several of his novels have been adapted for film or television, and he is the creator of a new television drama called Occupied.

“In the right hands,” writes Wendy Lesser in Slate, “the mystery novel becomes not only a thrilling cat-and-mouse game between a fiendishly clever murderer and a doggedly persistent detective, but also a commentary on the wider society that spawns, polices, and punishes murder. It is this wider view—the social view—at which the Scandinavians excel.” This dynamic is exemplified by The Snowman and has been a focus of the library’s discussion series on Scandinavian mysteries.