I’ve been in a creepy serial killer mood as of late. Not in my personal life, but most definitely in my literary one. Please don’t call the cops.
This. Book. Is. Everything.
I’m just going to make that statement from the get-go. This is a debut novel from Soren Sveistrup and I say Sveistrup is going to need to fulfill his civic duty and make The Chestnut Man the first of a series. In fact, I demand it. I am absolutely enamored with Hess and Thulin as a detective duo. They’re reminiscent of Maddox and Reilly from the Dublin Murder series by Tana French, with a touch of Strike and Robin from the Cormoran Strike series by Robert Galbraith (a.k.a J.K. Rowling, a.k.a The Goddess of Writing.) There is nothing better than a badass crime solving team that hold the potential for getting themselves into many dangerous situations, while harboring mixed feelings of resentment, (suppressed) sexual tension, and slight adoration for one another.
On top of a having two protagonists with their own interesting baggage, is the story behind the serial killings and the motivation of the Chestnut Man himself. WOW. Talk about dark and twisted. This book definitely went in a direction I wasn’t anticipating. But it was just as disturbing as I was hoping for (because let’s be honest – no one reads crime dramas/psychological thrillers for the warm-n-fuzzies.)
Naia Thulin is a detective in the Major Crimes Division of Copenhagen, biding her time until she’s able to put a transfer in to the NC3, a cyber-crime unit that’s fast growing, with highly coveted positions. Driven, ambitious, and intelligent, Thulin wants to prove herself in law enforcement and feels her potential isn’t being recognized in the MCD. Mark Hess has just been demoted from his position with Europool to slumming it in Major Crimes (for an unknown offense.) With the task of showing Hess the ropes placed on her shoulders, Thulin is forced to bring him to their latest crime scene; a gruesomely bizarre and brutal murder, complete with a missing amputated hand.
After scoping out the crime scene and interviewing the murdered woman’s surviving partner and son with autism, Hess is drawn back to the crime scene itself. There’s a peculiar and oddly placed addition to the scene. A small figure of a chestnut man, hanging near the body.
From there, a link is made to a similar case from a year prior, involving a high ranking political figure, Rosa Hartung, and her missing daughter, Kristine. In the wake of this revelation, a slew of new murders occur involving young mothers, all suffering the same brutalization and left with the killer’s calling card near their bodies.
As Thulin and Hess dig deeper into the mystery, they uncover disturbing information about the victims themselves. Information that is most definitely a motive for murder. Is this a demented person’s version of vigilante justice? And how does it tie back to Rosa Hartung and her daughter?
This book is 500+ pages of pure, on-the-edge-of-your-seat, thriller magic. There was not a moment of lag time and I honestly did not see the revelation coming at the end. Definitely a 5 out of 5 stars for me. I am truly looking forward to more of Soren Sveistrup’s books in the future!
And for more dynamic detective duos, check out the firsts of these series’:
Tata!
Happy & healthy reading!
Lexi
