Smilla's Sense of Snow

Books | Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths

3.9

(58)

Peter Hoeg

She thinks more highly of snow and ice than she does of love. She lives in a world of numbers, science and memories--a dark, exotic stranger in a strange land. And now Smilla Jaspersen is convinced she has uncovered a shattering crime...It happened in the Copenhagen snow. A six-year-old boy, a Greenlander like Smilla, fell to his death from the top of his apartment building. While the boy's body is still warm, the police pronounce his death an accident. But Smilla knows her young neighbor didn't fall from the roof on his own. Soon she is following a path of clues as clear to her as footsteps in the snow. For her dead neighbor, and for herself, she must embark on a harrowing journey of lies, revelation and violence that will take her back to the world of ice and snow from which she comes, where an explosive secret waits beneath the ice....

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More Details:

Author

Peter Hoeg

Pages

480

Publisher

Random House Publishing Group

Published Date

1995-10-01

ISBN

0385315147 9780385315142

Ratings

Google: 4

Community ReviewsSee all

"Well this was a fascinating and unusual read. It took me about a month to get through it. The book concerns a 30-something-year-old woman named Smilla. She is of Greenland Inuit descent & a Denmark citizen. These are two countries I knew literally nothing about & it was very interesting to learn about the histories and cultures of both. She lived a nomadic existence as a hunter in Greenland throughout her childhood, then lost her mother & brother tragically, then was sent to various boarding schools and lived in Denmark with her rich doctor father. Smilla is pretty unrealistic, but she is one of the more dynamic female heroines I have ever read about, so I will let it go. Her Inuit background led her to have uncanny spatial abilities and inner knowledge of ice. She is also a world renowned scientist not living up to her potential. She is 5'2" but can fight military-trained men effortlessly. And dresses to the 9s. She is both smart and a smart aleck. She is an interesting personality & I found the relationship between the Aboriginal and European/Western colonial culture the most fascinating part of the book. Smilla is interesting and I was intrigued reading about her. The thriller part of this novel, not nearly as interesting, moves at a glacier's pace (haha!) and is also not very realistic. Everything falls into place for Smilla a little too neatly/coincidentally and wow, what a conspiracy. By the end I was annoyed and just wanted to figure everything out."

R T

Rebekah Travis

"I haven't, but you might try Jo Nesbitt or Stieg Larsson. "