Handlung

Detective Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose scarf is found wrapped around an ominous-looking snowman.

When an elite crime squad's lead detective investigates the disappearance of a victim on the first snow of winter, he fears an elusive serial killer may be active again. With the help of a brilliant recruit, the cop must connect decades-old cold cases to the brutal new one if he hopes to outwit this unthinkable evil before the next snowfall.—Katrina L. Harrison

Harry Hole is a detective in the Oslo Police, and a highly successful one too. However, he has been having some personal problems of late, resulting in him turning to alcohol and prescription drugs. The lack of a case to solve isn't helping either. Then a woman disappears and another is murdered. This is looking like the work of a serial killer, one with a particular calling card - a snowman.—grantss

At a remote cabin amid-st heavy snowfall, a brutal man named Jonas confronts his lover about their illegitimate son who leaves the house and builds a snowman. The woman threatens to tell Jonas' family about the child, and Jonas leaves angrily in his car. The woman and her son pursue him, but lose him in the snow. She lets go of the steering wheel, causing the car to drive off the road onto a frozen lake. The boy manages to escape from the sinking car, but the woman stays inside in an apparent suicide..

Harry Hole, an inspector with the Oslo PD, is suffering from emotional issues which has led to insomnia and drinking to cope. Although Harry is no longer in a relationship with Rakel Fauke, she wants him to remain in her son Oleg's life - Harry the closest thing Oleg has ever had to a father in Rakel not knowing who his biological father is - despite she being in another serious relationship with plastic surgeon Dr. Mathias Lund-Helgessen, who tries to be that positive adult male role model as Oleg has begun acting out. Harry's emotional issues and his focus on work often results in he not being there for Oleg when Oleg relies on him. At work, Harry has just started teaming with Katrine Bratt, a new recruit from the Bergen PD, as their cases start to mesh. A missing woman case that Katrine is investigating seems to be related to a personal note Harry received marking itself with a figure of a snowman. Although Harry is slow to be convinced, he and Katrine begin to believe that the missing woman is just the latest in serial murders, all the female victims mothers and wives seemingly in unhappy marriages, with the killer's calling card snowmen, meaning that he kills only in winter. The investigation is only complicated by Katrine's unspoken ulterior motive in moving from Bergen to Oslo which takes her on a path to businessman Arve Støp, the high profile lead for Oslo's current World Cup bid, and why the killer seemingly has chosen Harry as his "confidante" in that initial note and other subsequent measures.—Huggo