Don Bartlett

"In Oslo, after the first snow of the season has fallen, a woman disappears, and a sinister snowman is left in her wake. As irascible detective Harry Hole realizes that this is only one of multiple disappearances, he begins to think a serial killer may be at work--and may be drawing in Hole personally and intentionally"--

Set in the 1970s in a run-down, industrial town, a police force struggles to shed an incessant drug problem. Duncan, the chief of police, is idealistic and visionary, a dream to the townspeople, but a nightmare for criminals. The drug trade is ruled by two drug lords, one of whom, a master of manipulation named Hecate, has connections with the highest in power, and plans to use them to get his way.

A young Norwegian girl taking a gap year in Sydney has been murdered, and Harry has been sent to Australia to assist in any way he can. He's not supposed to get too involved. When the team unearths a string of unsolved murders and disappearances, nothing will stop Harry from finding out the truth.

Oslo is sweltering in the summer heat when a young woman is murdered in her flat. One finger has been cut off and a tiny red diamond in the shape of a pentagram--a five-pointed star--is found under her eyelid. Detective Harry Hole is assigned the case with Tom Waaler, a colleague he neither likes nor trusts. He believes Tom is behind a gang of arms smugglers--and the murder of his partner. But Harry, an off-the-rails alcoholic, is barely holding on...

Two women have been found dead in Oslo, each with bizarre puncture wounds that were caused from the inside of their mouths. Police are baffled, so they send homicide detective Kaja Solness to Hong Kong to track down the one man who they think can solve the case; former serial killer specialist Harry Hole. But Hole remains haunted from his memories of his last assignment, and has his own problems in Hong Kong that he must sort out before he can help...

"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...

"One dark January night a car drives at high speed towards PI Varg Veum, and comes very close to killing him. Veum is certain this is no accident, following so soon after the deaths of two jailed men who were convicted for their participation in a case of child pornography and sexual assault ... crimes that Veum himself once stood wrongly accused of committing. While the guilty men were apparently killed accidentally, Varg suspects that there is something...

Varg Veum receives a surprise visit in his office. A woman introduces herself as his half-sister, and she has a job for him. Her god-daughter, a 19-year-old trainee nurse from Haugesund, moved from her apartment in Bergen two weeks ago. Since then no one has heard anything from her. She didn't leave an address. She doesn't answer her phone. And the police refuse to take her case seriously. Veum's investigation uncovers a series of carefully covered-up...

A chance encounter between two childhood friends, including one who escaped an abusive father, reveals how their fortunes have reversed. "[A] tale of two men whose accidental meeting one morning recalls their boyhood thirty-five years ago. Back then, Tommy was separated from his sisters after he stood up to their abusive father. Jim was by Tommy's side through it all. But one winter night, a chance event on a frozen lake forever changes the balance...

Detective Harry Hole is sent from Oslo to steaming hot Bangkok after the Norwegian ambassador to Thailand is found dead in a seedy motel room. As he wanders the streets lined with go-go bars, temples, opium dens, and tourist traps, Harry discovers that the ambassador's family is hiding some secrets of their own, but few people are willing to talk.