"One night, after the year's first snowfall, a boy named Jonas wakes up and discovers that his mother has disappeared. Only one trace of her remains: a pink scarf, his Christmas gift to her, now worn by the snowman that inexplicably appeared in their yard earlier that day. Inspector Harry Hole suspects a link between the missing woman and a suspicious letter he's received. The case deepens when a pattern emerges: over the past decade, eleven women...

"Christmas shoppers stop to hear a Salvation Army concert on a crowded Oslo street. A gunshot cuts through the music and the bitter cold: one of the singers falls dead, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole--the Oslo Police Department's best investigator and worst civil servant--has little to work with: no suspect, no weapon, and no motive. But Harry's troubles will multiply. As the search closes in, the killer becomes increasingly desperate,...

When Harry left Oslo again for Hong Kong, fleeing the traumas of life as a cop, he thought he was there for good. But then the unthinkable happened. The son of the woman he loved, lost, and still loves is arrested for murder: Oleg, the boy Harry helped raise but couldn't help deserting when he fled. Harry has come back to prove that Oleg is not a killer. Barred from rejoining the police force, he sets out on a solitary, increasingly dangerous investigation...

The horrifically disfigured corpse of an Oslo police officer is found at the scene of a homicide whose trail went cold years before. The butchered officer was involved in the first investigation. It is the anniversary of the death. Within months, two more officers are killed the same way: at the scenes of the unsolved murders they investigated. The newest slayings are especially brutal. The media reaction is frenzied. The police are beginning to believe...

"The hunt is on and the police are running out of time. Two young women are missing, their only connection a party they both attended, hosted by a notorious real-estate magnate. When one of the women is found murdered, the police discover an unusual signature left by the killer, giving them reason to suspect he will strike again. They're facing a killer unlike any other. And exposing him calls for a detective like no other. But the legendary Harry...

"Detective Harry Hole embarrassed the force, and for his sins he's been reassigned to mundane surveillance tasks. But while monitoring neo-Nazi activities in Oslo, Hole is inadvertently drawn into a mystery with deep roots in Norway's dark past, when members of the government willingly collaborated with Nazi Germany. More than sixty years later, this black mark won't wash away--and disgraced old soldiers who once survived a brutal Russian winter are...

As Christmas approaches, Detective Harry Hole investigates the murder of a Salvation Army singer, who turns out to have been shot by mistake.