Crime Review
The biggest surprise of a book and one that will consistently be on our top 10 best novels for a very long time. This is the book that you can’t put down and haunts you for days after you’ve finished. Soren Svestrups novel is relentlessly savage from it’s blood thirsty beginning right down to it’s “what the **** just happened?” ending.
We start on a farm in the middle of nowhere. A local policeman is investigating a disturbance call at the home of a drunken waster and his family. Thoughts of getting home on time for dinner soon end when he sees the mutilated bodies at the breakfast table and in the bath. Terrified and with gun in hand, our policeman inspects the property, from blood soaked kitchen to dirty basement, seeing little men made of chestnuts when he finally gets murdered by an axe to the head. This is in the past, and this doesn’t come up again for a while.
Now we’re in the present and we meet our main character, a female cop called Tulin. She’s a single parent whose only support outside of work is an elderly male friend she treats like a father. It’s never clearly explained. Tulin doesn’t want to work in boring, stuffy old homicide, because that’s not the cool thing any more; tech is where it’s at, and dammit, she’s obviously the best person on the force and she wants a damn transfer. Naturally her pretentious, political male boss is putting it off. Luckily, there are murders occurring. Very disgusting and savage ones and at first it seems like there is no motivation. Partnered with Hess, an unwilling Europol agent who mostly works alone, Tulin discovers that all of the women that were murdered were covering up a secret. An unpleasant and disturbing secret. This sudden connection between the victims soon throws them off as there is an apparent link to a local politician whose daughter disappeared almost a year ago. There is no evidence, but somehow this is where all the connections end up, and its up to our two super cops to figure out why.
The characters are ass holes, without any kind of charm that makes you want to read about them individually. Tulin has what has to be described as the worlds most painful sex with a man she has no interest in. Her kid is super adorable but she doesn’t seem all that in to being a mother. Oh my god she hates everyone and everything has to go her way. This is just a brief insight to her character at the start of her novel and it leaves you feeling disinterested in what is happening, and you find that you are forcing yourself to continue reading. It’s hard to believe in the strength of your characters if there is nothing positive about them that you can respond to. The character of Hess is similar. It’s like watching every other “I see in between the lines better than anyone and I blur those lines because I do as I please and I don’t care” lead male- it just lacks originality there. It’s entertaining as hell, but it’s been done before. Now for the ending. It’s a bad guy that you don’t see coming. Literally. There are no clues whatsoever to give away who the villain is. That’s the best part of the crime novel, unravelling the story with the detectives. Svestrup doesn’t do that. He deliberately doesn’t give you a lot of facts and jumps straight to the conclusion, tying it up in a neat little bow at the end like it’s Scooby Doo.
However, once you get past how irritating the characters are and watch as they learn how to work together and untangle a rather disgusting, sinister series of murders, you completely ignore any of the flaws the novel could possibly have. Svestrups writing style wraps you up in a rather intense story, one that is bloodthirsty and full of surprises. You never know what to expect every time you turn the page and nothing is obvious. The only thing you can be certain of is the main characters.
This book goes into several very dark areas in disturbing detail. It’s hard to remain objective while reading this book and it does haunt you for several days once you have read it. It’s shockingly brutal and a true delight to read. You won’t want to put it down, even when you’ve finished reading.
