The Snowman

“He practiced speed-cuffing the table leg, which was already splintered as a result of this new bad habit of his. […] The aim was to bang the cuffs against the arrestee’s wrist in such a way that the spring-loaded arm closed around the wrist and the lock clicked on the other side. With the right amount of force and accuracy you could cuff yourself to an arrestee in one simple movement before he had a chance to react. Harry had never had any use for this on the job and only once for the other thing he had learned over there: how to catch a serial killer.”

Harry’s experience training with the FBI has taught him about catching serial killers. This has made him Norway’s most preeminent detective, and the only one with experience hunting serial killers. The other thing he learned with the FBI, speed-cuffing, is just something he does to pass the time; however, in the end, it will be the key to both catching the Snowman and saving his own life in the climactic scene.

“She sat down on the stool opposite him and ordered an aperitif. Campari, it went without saying. Harry used to call her ‘Cochineal’ after the natural pigment that gave the spicy sweet wine its characteristic color. Because she liked to dress in bright red. Rakel had herself claimed that she used it as a warning, the way animals use strong colors to tell others to keep their distance.”

Harry’s relationship with Rakel is important in the novel—at first his narrative with her seems separate from the mystery. However, as the novel continues, Rakel plays an important part in the serial killer story as well. In Harry’s mind, and in the narrative, cochineal is a motif that is linked with Rakel, and its symbolism of power and sexuality will be integral to her role in the Snowman case.

“‘Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for until you find it,’ Harry answered. ‘It’s a methodology.’”

Harry’s training on hunting serial killers happened in the United States with the FBI, and so his methodology is partly shaped by his time there. However, his methodology is also specific to his own personality and experience and expresses his unique characteristics as a detective. One of the core aspects of his methodology is the idea that instead of searching for something specific, one should look at what is there, or sometimes, what is not there. This idea of perspective connects to the theme of How to Catch a Killer.

“Soon the first snow will come. And then he will appear again. The snowman. And when the snow has gone, he will have taken someone else. What you should ask yourself is this: ‘Who made the snowman? Who makes snowmen? Who gave birth to the Murri?’ For the snowman doesn’t know.”

This anonymous letter that Harry receives piques his interest in the missing women of Norway and starts the hunt for the Snowman. Later, he will find out that Katrine Bratt wrote the letter to put Norway’s serial killer hunter, Harry Hole, on the trail of the killer. However, with her attention to the snowman imagery, Katrine has also homed in on an important facet of the killer’s pathology and a part of his origins.

“Harry told Holm to follow the footprints and hung up. Then he crouched against a tree, buttoned his coat right up and switched off the flashlight to save the battery while he waited. Thinking he had almost forgotten what it tasted like, the darkness.”

Harry discovered a snowman with the head of Sylvia Ottersen in the woods. It wasn’t easy for him to come into the woods at night, as he had a fundamental and terrifying experience in “the woods near his grandparents” house when he was a child. One of Harry’s strengths as a detective is his willingness to confront even things that terrify him, a lesson he passes on to Oleg.

“‘The problem is,’ Harry continued, ‘this is not that kind of case. Not that kind of killer. This person has not confided in a friend or shown his face in the vicinity of the murder. No one out there knows anything, so the calls that come in won’t help us, they’ll just delay us. And any possible forensic clues we uncover have been left there to confuse us. In a nutshell, this is a different kind of game.’”

Harry is explaining to his supervisor, Gunnar Hagen, how the Snowman case is different from other murder cases they’ve worked on. From his training, Harry knows that a serial killer is a different type of killer and catching him will require a different strategy. Gunnar is offended by Harry saying that it is a game, but Harry understands that this is how the serial killer sees what he is doing, and that he sees Harry as an adversary.

“Harry could feel the adrenaline rush, the trembling that always came when he got the first scent of the brute. And after the rush came the Great Obsession. Which was everything at once: love and intoxication, blindness and clear-sightedness, meaning and madness. Colleagues spoke now and then about excitement, but this was something else, something special. He had never told anyone about the Obsession or made any attempt to analyze it. He hadn’t dared. All he knew was that it helped him, drove him, fueled the job he was appointed to perform. He didn’t want to know any more. He really didn’t.”

Harry is very personally invested in his work, to the detriment of his personal life. He knows this, and recognizes that his approach to investigation is unhealthy, which is why he keeps the “Great Obsession” a secret. However, he also knows that it is the key to his success, and in the novel, Harry will show the lengths he is willing to go to in order to catch the Snowman.

“Mathias shook his head. ‘But I’ve decided that the day my life’s work is done and I’m so ill I no longer want to live, I’ll take the lift up to the top of the ski-jump tower on that hill there. […] And then I’ll jump. Not on skis but from the tower.’”

Fairly early in the book, Harry and Mathias are at the ski-jump tower. At this time, Harry doesn’t know that Mathias is the Snowman, nor that Mathias has a genetic condition that will cause his premature death. However, this early conversation will give Harry the key to finding Mathias at the end of the novel.

“‘Yes, I think he wants us to trace him.’ ‘Why?’ ‘It’s classic. The narcissistic serial killer staging a game, with himself in the principal role as the invincible, the all-powerful conqueror who triumphs in the end.’ ‘Triumphs over what?’ ‘Well,’ Harry replied, saying it for the first time aloud, ‘at the risk of sounding narcissistic myself, me.’”

Harry again finds himself having to explain the unique aspects of hunting a serial killer. He also expresses for the first time outright that there is another aspect of the serial killer’s game: a need for an adversary. The fact that he, as Norway’s preeminent detective and serial killer hunter, is that adversary means that Harry is going to have to engage with this investigation on a very personal level.

“‘We search,’ Harry said. ‘What for?’ ‘That’s the last of our thoughts.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because it’s easy to miss something important if you’re searching for something else. Clear your mind. You’ll know what you’re searching for when you see it.’”

Harry and Katrine are in Gert Rafto’s family cabin, and he is advising Katrine on how to search the cabin. However, more than that, Harry is training Katrine in How to Catch a Killer. He is sharing his methodology with her, part of which involves maintaining an open mind—not looking for what you expect to see, but seeing what is and isn’t there.

“‘But what do you do,’ Katrine asked, stroking a wisp of hair from her face, ‘not to be knocked out by the first blow?’ ‘Do what boxers do, sway with the punches. Don’t resist. If any of what happens at work gets to you, just let it. You won’t be able to shut it out in the long term anyway. Take it bit by bit, release it like a dam, don’t let it collect until the wall develops cracks.’”

Katrine continues to probe Harry’s methodology and the secrets behind his investigative success. When she asks him how he handles losing control, he responds that he has had a lot of practice. But he goes further to draw a parallel with the way he handles it, and the way boxers take a punch and stay on their feet. Harry advises her not to avoid the feelings that come along with their jobs, but rather to acknowledge them.

“No, the good news is that we’re getting warmer. If not, the Snowman wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to make it seem as if Vetlesen were the man we were hunting. He wants us to call off the investigation, believing we have solved the case. In short, he’s under pressure. And that’s when killers like the Snowman begin to make mistakes. In addition, it suggests that he dare not resume the bloodbath.”

Harry has discovered that Idar Vetlesen couldn’t have died by suicide, which means that the killer murdered him to frame him as the Snowman. While Gunnar is upset by the news, Harry reveals the bigger picture to him. He understands that the Snowman’s attempt to scapegoat Idar Vetlesen shows that he is worried about the investigation’s progress, and that nervousness will cause him to make mistakes. What he doesn’t anticipate, however, is that instead of stopping the killing, the Snowman will accelerate his plan.

“People think poker’s about statistics, odds and probability. But if you play at the highest level all the players know the odds by heart, so that’s not where the battle takes place. What separates the best from the rest is their ability to read others.”

Harry calls on the expertise of his childhood friend, Tresko, a professional poker player, to find out how one assesses whether someone is lying. Tresko’s understanding about what makes a good poker player fits in with Harry’s understanding of his interaction with the Snowman as a game. The key to Harry’s success in finding the Snowman is his understanding of it as a game, with the Snowman as an adversary, and his willingness to look outside traditional police procedures to achieve greater understanding is the key to his success in How to Catch a Killer.

“At the FBI course they had examined cases where it had taken more than ten years to catch the killer. As a rule, it had been one tiny, random detail, it seemed, that had solved the case. However, what actually cracked it was the fact that they had never given up; they had gone all fifteen rounds, and if the opponent was still standing they screamed for a return fight.”

Harry is struggling with his lack of progress in the investigation, and so he returns to his training with the FBI. He remembers that what really makes the difference and leads to success is perseverance. This also connects to the aspect of his methodology where he draws parallels to a boxer, but this time, a boxer that just won’t give up. He holds onto this idea that the “one, tiny random detail” will crack the case if he only maintains an open mind and perseveres.

“‘Your sons?’ Harry asked, sitting down. ‘I think so.’ She smiled. ‘What?’ ‘Insiders’ joke. You said something about someone submitting tests?”

Harry is meeting with Gerda Nelvik, the woman in charge of the DNA paternity tests. The joke she makes connects to something Harry heard on the radio, that 15-20% of children are not, biologically, their fathers’. Her joke is a nod to that, but also funny because, as the children’s mother, who gave birth to them, her genetic parenthood of them is not in question.

“Harry started to search the other end of the room. And told himself the same thing he had said to Katrine on the island of Finnøy: Empty your mind of expectations and look, don’t search. […] Then he was finished. He had searched everywhere. Without any success, except for the most important premise of any search: What you don’t find is just as important as what you do. And he knew now what he hadn’t found.”

Harry is searching Katrine’s apartment after she has nearly killed Arve Støp, looking for connections between Katrine and the Snowman. Even though it seems clear that Katrine is the Snowman, he stays true to his methodology, one tenet of which is “look, don’t search.” Because of this approach, Harry is able to see not only what is there, but what isn’t there, which gives him just as much information.

“‘I seem to remember you said the only capital was your personal integrity.’ Støp shrugged his shoulders with displeasure. ‘Integrity. Label. It’s the same thing.’ ‘So if something looks like integrity, then it’s integrity?’ Støp stared at Harry. ‘That’s what sells Liberal. If people feel they’re given the truth, they’re satisfied.’”

Arve Støp is famous in Norway as the owner of Liberal, and for unapologetically holding others up to the highest moral standards. However, as the story continues, Støp’s own moral flexibility and ambiguity come to the forefront. With this exchange, Harry draws out Støp’s most blunt statement of what he actually believes, as opposed to how he presents himself. He basically says that the truth is not as important as the appearance of the truth, and negates the entire concept of integrity, connecting to both the theme of Truth Versus Public Perception and the Nordic noir convention of exploring corruption.

“‘Everyone has a pattern of behavior,’ he heard himself say. ‘A game plan.’ ‘I see. And what’s mine?’ ‘Pointing one way and running the other.’”

Throughout the novel, Harry has been training Katrine on his methodology, and now, finally, he turns his investigative techniques on her. He explains, in a few simple words, how he unraveled her behavior. He has found her at her family’s cabin and explains to her how he did it—by understanding her in the same way that he studies and understands a serial killer. For Harry, it is as simple as the fact that, if she sent her phone west, it means she went east.

“Harry’s laughter was strained. Mathias’s crossed arms had sunk a little, and now Harry could see what Rakel must have meant by Mathias’s physical quirk. Where you expected to see two nipples, the skin just continued, white and unbroken. ‘It’s hereditary,’ said Mathias, who had clearly been following Harry’s eyes. ‘My father didn’t have any either.’”

Harry does not yet understand that Mathias is the Snowman, but with this small reveal, Nesbø gives the reader the clues needed to understand Mathias’s history as it is revealed in Part 5. In Chapter 33, the scene from Mathias’s childhood, in which the man having sex with Mathias’s mother doesn’t have nipples, means that this man is his biological father. It also means that Mathias has inherited the genetic disease that goes along with this condition, one which will soon cause his death and necessitates the acceleration of his plans.

“If you want to hide red stains you can either remove them or paint everything red. I think the Snowman was trying to hide something. A clue.”

Harry is beginning to untangle the mystery of the Snowman’s identity. The mold man who has been working on Harry’s apartment unknowingly gives him the clue that will lead them to concrete DNA evidence to catch the Snowman. Harry has realized that the Snowman killed the third chicken to cover up his own blood, which was spilled by Sylvia Ottersen in her barn, and by testing that blood, they will know the killer’s blood type.

“The snowman stood by one of the windows in the house. Sounds were coming out. He broke a couple of twigs off the apple tree and stuck them in the snowman’s sides. Dug up some gravel by the front steps, shinnied up again and made two eyes and a line of pebbles for a smile. Then he placed his thighs around the snowman’s head, and, sitting on the shoulders, looked through the window.”

In Part 5, Nesbø finally reveals Mathias’s history, and in doing so, the origin story of his evolution into the Snowman. Here, the reader sees the reason that the snowman is such an integral part of his pathology and methods is that it is intimately connected to his discovery of his mother’s infidelity and the truth of his biological father. In this way, snowmen are imprinted on Mathias’s desire for revenge.

“It was chance that set the ball rolling. He saw him on TV. The policeman. Harry Hole. Hole was being interviewed because he had hunted down a serial killer in Australia. And Mathias was reminded of Gert Rafto’s advice: ‘Avoid my beat.’ He also recalled, however, the satisfaction of having taken the life of the hunter. The feeling of supremacy. The feeling of power. Nothing later had quite compared with the murder of the police officer. And this Herostratically famous Hole appeared to have something of Rafto about him, some of the same offhandedness and anger.”

As the story is told from Mathias’s point of view in Part 5, the reader learns about how Mathias evolved into a serial killer. In this quote, he reveals that, however the killing actually began, as he continued, it evolved to go beyond just the killing. When Mathias worked with Gert Rafto, and later killed him, he understood another aspect of the killing that adds something exciting for him: an adversary. This feeling is something that Harry expected and understood, because it is part of the serial killer game and works into his understanding of How to Catch a Killer.

“He could feel it now, as a pressure on his temples; this was where it would end. And there was a kind of logic to it. How many times had he stood like this in front of the bedroom door, at daybreak, after a night when he had promised to be at home with her, how often had he stood there with a bad conscience knowing she was inside asleep?”

In the beginning of the climax of the novel, Harry is standing outside Rakel’s bedroom, knowing that Mathias has her inside. Further, he understands that Mathias targeted Rakel because of her relationship with Harry. In this quote, Harry connects this present experience with the trajectory of their relationship when they were together, remembering how he had failed her in the past.