Book Synopsis:
One blustery October morning in a quiet suburb of Copenhagen, the police make a terrible discovery. A young woman is found brutally murdered in a playground and one of her hands is missing. Above her hangs a small doll made of chestnuts.
Ambitious young detective Naia Thulin is assigned the case. Her partner, Mark Hess, is a burned-out investigator who’s just been kicked out of Europol. They soon discover a mysterious piece of evidence on the chestnut man – evidence connecting it to a girl who went missing a year earlier and is presumed dead – the daughter of politician Rosa Hartung.
The man who confessed to her murder is behind bars and the case is long since closed.
Soon afterwards, another woman is found murdered, along with another chestnut man. Thulin and Hess suspect that there’s a connection between the Hartung case, the murdered women and a killer who is spreading fear throughout the country. But what is it?
Thulin and Hess are racing against the clock, because it’s clear that the murderer is on a mission that is far from over . . .
The Chestnut Man is published on the 10th January 2019, but you can pre-order it here.
My Review:
The Chestnut Man is a dark, fast paced and chilling book that was one of the best books I’ve read from this genre for ages!
From the chilling first pages this is a book that draws you in from the start and is impossible to put down. There is lots of action and revelations that ensure the reader is totally gripped! It was a perfect book to escape into on a long journey up to Scotland with three kids!
The story follows an investigation into a very brutal serial killer and a mysterious link with a past case. I thought this was very well done with the author playing a type of cat and mouse game with the reader as they try to work out what’s happening. Some of the descriptions are quite graphic and actually made me feel sick at times, so be warned but I didn’t feel it was overdone as it fitted with the story.
I loved the development of the partnership between Thulin and Hess though I initially didn’t like Thulin as I felt she was quite full of herself. I enjoyed reading about how they gradually started working together as a team. I hope that they are featured in future books.
The book is divided into days, with it opening on the date of a very brutal event and then going back in time to cover events leading up to this. It also goes on afterwards to cover the aftermath and conclusion. I felt this added to the tension in the book as the reader is aware of what is going to happen so is waiting for it. The chapters are quite short and are told from multiple points of view which helps keeps the readers attention and makes for easy, quick reading.
This is the debut novel from the writer of The Killing and although I’ve never seen the Killing, I’m reliably informed by other bloggers that if you like the show then you’ll love this book as the styles are similar. I’m very excited to read more from this author and hope that there is more to come, hopefully with the same detective team as I thought they worked well together.
Huge thanks to Jenny Platt from Michael St Joseph’s for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book. If you are a fan of dark fast paced, thrilling crime novels then you’ll love this book!
About The Author:
Søren Sveistrup is an internationally acclaimed scriptwriter of the Danish television phenomenon The Killing which won various international awards and sold in more than a hundred countries. More recently, Sveistrup wrote the screenplay for Jo Nesbø’s The Snowman. Sveistrup obtained a Master in Literature and in History from the University of Copenhagen and studied at the Danish Film School. He has won countless prizes, including an Emmy for Nikolaj and Julie and a BAFTA for The Killing.
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