December 13, 2021
The disappearance of 15-year-old Oscar Dreyer-Hoff drives Engberg’s engrossing third novel featuring Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner (after 2020’s The Butterfly House). When Oscar’s affluent parents, who own an auction house, find a cryptic, threatening note addressed to them in their kitchen, they’re convinced Oscar is being held ransom. Soon, Oscar’s Danish teacher, Malthe Saether, is found strangled. Convinced that Oscar’s apparent kidnapping and Malthe’s death are tied together, Jeppe and Anette begin their investigation, aided by a large cast of supporting characters, all of whom, like retired academic Esther de Laurenti (who had a lead role in 2019’s The Tenant), are delightfully fleshed out. Meanwhile, Jeppe struggles to maintain an amicable relationship with his girlfriend’s daughters, and Anette becomes attracted to one of the witnesses. The plot takes some unexpected turns as the detectives unearth some shocking secrets involving fraud and pornography en route to the satisfying conclusion. Readers will eagerly await Jeppe and Anette’s next case. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden).
Starred review from November 1, 2021
Police detectives Jeppe K�rner and Anette Werner are called in when a 15-year-old Copenhagen boy goes missing. His wealthy parents are frantic with worry, assuming he has been kidnapped, but he has left behind a piece of paper with a quote from Oscar Wilde that leads the detectives to think it may be a suicide note. The mystery deepens after one of the boy's teachers is found dead in the jaws of a crane at an energy plant, and another dies on train tracks. The police and the reader embark on an all-out search through Copenhagen, by land and sea, in one of the best armchair travelogues in ages. (Never mind that The Little Mermaid statue is smaller than you expected.) Off the job, Jeppe is struggling to establish a relationship with his partner's daughters, and Anette, in the "sanctimonious parent phase of her life," finds her fidelity to her husband surprisingly challenged. The investigation leads to a high-level crime, but it is the absolute humanity of the storytelling that makes the book a masterpiece of Nordic noir. Engberg is now one of the most widely read and beloved crime authors in Denmark. This is book three of the series (after The Butterfly House, 2020) and fans will be desperately waiting for book four.
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