Thank goodness that Jo Nesbo doesn't work for tourism for Norway. Not only is Norway a hot bed for questionable morals and deplorable behavior but their crime squad leaves something to be desired. There is only one good detective there, anybody else who was competent has been killed, and he's struggling with demons lapsing in and out of soberity. Any other detective is either too rash, too timid, too bureaucratic, or too sociopathic/psychotic. 
 Also, there are a bevy of killers running amok. Serial killers especially enjoy some longevity in Norway and these serial killers don't play. They make creepy as all hell snowmen, some that even define the laws of Physics, and decapitate their victims and put their heads on the snowman. Or they try to make their victim until a human snowman. This is more or less the premise of Nesbo's seventh Harry Hole novel. 
 I did enjoy The Snowman a lot and can see why this was the first one in the Harry Hole series translated into English. It's haunting and atmospheric. The murders are grusome to the extreme and it's downright creepy. There are so many twists and turns and red herrings, it's hard to keep the facts straight. The Snowman was very entertaining and addicting. 
 It was nice to see Harry only slightly succomb to his alcoholism in this novel. Professionally, he was as sharp as a tack as I ever seen so far. Nesbo did a good job with turning everything on its head regarding established characters. Nesbo proved that no character and their motives are ever transparent. 
 However, there were aspects that I didn't like. Given the subject manner, it was understandable but there were a lot of graphic sex scenes in this novel. Like wow. The beginning scene actually caught me off-guard with the sexual hijinks. 
 Another was the outlandishness of the whole-human-sitting-on-a-snowman-physics-be-damned aspect. A skinny 13 year old kid sitting on a snowman in the cold is one thing but a grown woman sitting on one in her bedroom is implausible to say the least. 
 Despite those, I look forward to reading more of Harry Hole in the future.