'Smilla's Sense of Snow' by Peter Hoeg

Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Peter Hoeg (3.5)

If you enjoy anti-heroes like Lisbeth Salander and the Norwegian genre of dark suspense filled stories, this is one of the originals. Though set in Greenland and Copenhagen, I kept expecting Mikael Blomkvist to pop up to help Smilla. The story begins with the sad death of a young Greenlander whom Smilla had befriended (as much as she befriends anyone). Her particular skill, as another Greenlander, is reading and understanding ice and snow. She questions the ‘accident’ of her young friend (based on his footprints in the snow) and it takes her on a long journey to understand why someone would kill a young boy. The story is quite complicated, with many interesting characters and back-stories. Frankly it was hard to keep straight and I recommend reading it without long breaks. That being said, I really enjoyed the unusual characters, unique location and building suspense. My one complaint concerns the loose ends around a major character that disappears and pops up later – but I won’t spoil anything with details.