Someone must die.
以前對北歐的印象除了遙遠.寒冷之外，就是一些品牌的記憶，如具備簡潔傢俱設計的”IKEA” 及手機大廠”Nokia” 等、再來就是大家常探討的北歐幸福教育、都是一些概念性的印象…從未想過它會與犯罪小說有任何關聯，隨著瑞典作家Stieg Larsson 的千禧年系列( The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 龍紋身的女孩、玩火的女孩、直搗蜂窩的女孩) 在全球熱賣，北歐作家也開始受到關注，在這波風潮之中，來自挪威的Jo Nesbo 以冷冽的暴力美學，同樣征服了歐美書市。
關於Jo Nesbo 的經歷，可說用〝跳tone〞兩個字來形容！十七歲那年加入國家足球聯盟，卻因一場意外毀了足球夢，不得已的狀況下只好重回校園，又因成績不佳申請不到大學，於是他選擇從軍，此後三年靠著自學，考進了著名的Bergen 大學攻讀經濟學。畢業之後白天在證券交易所工作，晚上及週末則化身為搖滾巨星巡迴表演，並灌錄唱片享譽全國。當他發覺工作與樂團難以兼顧時，毅然地決定休息半年，帶著筆電遠走地球的彼端—澳洲，開始了他的創作之旅，於是讓他聲名大噪的Harry Hole 警探系列因此應運而生！
The Snowman 是Harry Hole 警探系列之一，奧斯陸的冬季已經夠冷了，再加上殺人犯以雪人為犯案的楔子，當冰雪融化時，他將帶走另一個人…，黑暗冷調的泥沼讓人陷入恐慌之中，置於事故現場的雪人是何用意？Hole 收到的怪信是挑釁還是線索？在推敲犯人身份的同時，Hole 再次觸及自己個性中的陰暗面，他該如何抽絲剝繭及看待與警探身份衝突的個性？在The Snowman 裏沒有英雄主義的探員，精巧的布局及高度張力的文字敍述，在在展現北歐作家獨特的冷硬推理，對於喜歡黑暗元素的犯罪小說迷們，我高度推薦此書。
Internationally acclaimed crime writer Jo Nesbo’s antihero police investigator, Harry Hole, is back: in a bone-chilling thriller that will take Hole to the brink of insanity. Oslo in November. The first snow of the season has fallen. A boy named Jonas wakes in the night to find his mother gone. Out his window, in the cold moonlight, he sees the snowman that inexplicably appeared in the yard earlier in the day. Around its neck is his mother’s pink scarf.
Hole suspects a link between a menacing letter he’s received and the disappearance of Jonas’s mother—and of perhaps a dozen other women, all of whom went missing on the day of a first snowfall. As his investigation deepens, something else emerges: he is becoming a pawn in an increasingly terrifying game whose rules are devised—and constantly revised—by the killer.
Fiercely suspenseful, its characters brilliantly realized, its atmosphere permeated with evil, The Snowman is the electrifying work of one of the best crime writers of our time.