Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo has crafted a story full of serial killer mayhem, misdirection aplenty, and a cat-and-mouse game with The Snowman, one of eight books currently written about police inspector Harry Hole (pronounced Hooley, sadly). A determined, intelligent, and instinctive inspector, Hole also comes complete with an incredible appetite for self-destruction, usually, but not always, fueled by alcohol. It’s the intersection of these two components with the suspense of the story that kept my e-reader clicking late into the night.

In The Snowman, Hole wakes in early November as the first snow of the year has arrived overnight, and with it a foreboding of the darkness to come. Because with the first snow of the year, somewhere a snowman appears, and with it, a disappearance, and once discovered, a murdered mother.

Assisted by his new partner (with her own interesting backstory), Katrine Bratt, Harry traces the links and other unsolved disappearances back twenty years to the Snowman’s first victims. During the investigation, he also makes the connection between the Snowman and the disappearance of an earlier police inspector, Inspector Gert “Iron” Rafto of the Bergen police force, infamous in his own right.

As Hole learns more, he finds in Rafto a striking resemblance to himself: “My spiritual doppelganger in Bergen, Harry thought, after receiving Müller-Nilsen’s description: unhealthy attitude toward alcohol, difficult temperament, lone wolf, unreliable, doubtful morality, and very blemished record.”

As he unwinds the Rafto disappearance and others, Harry soon finds he is up against a highly intelligent killer, with a sadistic mind and a motive seemingly without end. Each time it seems that Harry is ready to solve the mystery, another twist appears and the story launches into yet another direction.

With The Snowman, Nesbo has written a solid thriller with the layers, nuances, and twists worthy of Henning Mankell and other talented writers. And with Harry Hole he has created a perfectly flawed and troubled hero that you can’t help but root for.

Find the full list of Harry Hole novels here.

The month of May this year was chillier than usual for American readers thanks to Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman, and winter's about to come crashing in with the publication of The Leopard this December. Nesbo’s Norwegian roots and knack for suspense and cold, creepy ambience have invited obvious comparison to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Millennium Trilogy (in the UK, his books are printed with a seal calling him ‘the next Stieg Larsson’). But like his hero Harry Hole, Nesbo is his own man. He has a near-supernatural gift for giving characters depth and psychological complexity, and while both Harry and Lisbeth Salander will give you papercuts from turning their pages so fast, I find Harry’s issues -- mired not in government conspiracy and brutal abuse but the more mundane culprits Melancholy and Alcohol -- make him more compelling. And even at his most dire, Harry is never without his droll sense of humor.

The sixth book in Nesbo’s Harry Hole series available in English, The Leopard, picks up with Harry living semi-consciously in Hong Kong following his cracking of The Snowman case. Harry is a maverick cop with nine closets’ worth of emotional baggage: lost love, family guilt, anti-establishment angst, alcoholism, questionable hygiene. (Despite this, he is irresistible to the ladies, being something of a cocktail of introspection, Superman, and Steve McQueen.) He has run to Hong Kong to wallow in his various miseries, medicating with opium to stop drinking. While fans of the series have seen Harry in the pits before, he has really hit rock bottom in the opening of The Leopard. He grudgingly concedes to returning to Oslo to help with a new murder case, convinced only by the news that his father has become terminally ill.

And on to the murders. Women in Oslo have been found dead, drowned in their own blood. Clues are scant and Harry has to contend with bureaucratic jurisdictional nonsense within the crime squad to work his magic. More bodies turn up – a hanging in a park and a man crazy-glued to his bathtub. Eventually Harry discerns the victims spent the same night in a tiny ski hostel and that the killer is picking off the remaining guests. Will Harry be able to pull himself together enough to think ahead of the killer and save the next name on the list? The investigation traverses Nordic mountaintops, angry African volcanoes, and the mind of the most certifiably insane villain Harry has yet to pursue. Nesbo flawlessly outpaces your guesses, ratcheting up the stakes with each chapter.

Friendly warning: The murder weapon in The Leopard is one of the most terrifying implements ever committed to the page.