I purchased this book for my own personal collection.
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Published: June 26, 2012 (first published 2009)
Summary:
In the depths of winter, a killer stalks the city streets. His victims are two young women, both found with twenty-four inexplicable puncture wounds, both drowned in their own blood. The crime scenes offer no clues, the media is reaching fever pitch, and the police are running out of options. There is only one man who can help them, and he doesn’t want to be found. Deeply traumatised by The Snowman investigation, which threatened the lives of those he holds most dear, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong’s opium dens. But with his father seriously ill in hospital, Harry reluctantly agrees to return to Oslo. He has no intention of working on the case, but his instinct takes over when a third victim is found brutally murdered in a city park.
The victims appear completely unconnected to one another, but it’s not long before Harry makes a discovery: the women all spent the night in an isolated mountain hostel. And someone is picking off the guests one by one. A heart-stopping thriller from the bestselling author of the The Snowman, The Leopard is an international phenomenon that will grip you until the final page.
My thoughts:
I’m so glad I decided to read this series this year and to read them one after the other – with some other books inbetween as they are a bit dark and disturbing. But reading them pretty close together is really helping me to remember what has happened in the previous book, which in this case was a good thing as it seems this one picks up pretty soon after the close of The Snowman and all that went on there.
I love that Harry gives each case his all, many times not caring if his means and methods put him on the outs with his colleagues and superiors. There are also times when I actually fear for his life, wondering if he is going to make it to the end of the book.
This one had all the hallmarks I love in these types of books – a serial killer, a flawed detective and an intense, fast-paced plot that kept me flipping the pages until the very end. I’ve given up trying to figure out where things are going with this series and just go along for the ride…it’s so much more entertaining and fun that way!
Books in this series:
- The Bat
- Cockroaches
- The Redbreast
- Nemesis
- The Devil’s Star
- The Redeemer
- The Snowman
- The Leopard
- Phantom
- Police
- The Thirst
- Knife
