"If you find one, he’s already found you. A psychopath is terrorizing Copenhagen.
His calling card is a “chestnut man”—a handmade doll made of matchsticks and two chestnuts—which he leaves at each bloody crime scene. Examining the dolls, forensics makes a shocking discovery—a fingerprint belonging to a young girl, a government minister’s daughter who had been kidnapped and murdered a year ago. A tragic coincidence—or something more twisted?
To save innocent lives, a pair of detectives must put aside their differences to piece together the Chestnut Man’s gruesome clues. Because it’s clear that the madman is on a mission that is far from over. And no one is safe."
What Worked for Me:
I love weird, ritualistic murders and this book had a bunch of bodies which was great. No one really used the words 'serial killer' in the book, but we certainly had enough bodies drop on page to qualify. We don't get to see much of the actual violence on the page - any time we get close we are quickly changed to a different POV - and I didn't really mind because the violence isn't really the interesting part. I found the investigation into how the killer was choosing victims to be much more interesting.
I really enjoyed all the different POVs we get in this read. It did take me maybe the first 10-15% of the book to get used to the quick chapters combined with the POV changes. It was a bit jarring at first, especially in the beginning as we are being introduced to many different characters. However, as the investigation moves along and we get to see how these characters are related and interact in the plot, it becomes much easier to just go with the flow of the narrative.
I really enjoyed following our main investigation pair - Thulin and Hess. They are a bit of an odd couple, especially at the beginning, but end up complementing each other well. I feel like each of them embody the sort of cliche detective main character you get in these sorts of reads. Thulin is a no-nonsense sort of detective, very motivated and thorough but can rub others the wrong way (although she doesn't seem to care much about that). Hess is the other cliche - a bit of an odd bird, quirky, lone wolf type that gets in trouble easily by not following orders and instead following his gut with the investigation. I really liked how the two of them equally contributed to the investigation.
What Didn't Work for Me:
The pacing was not working for me. It was very stop/start in a way that was more frustrating than anything else. I've read a good number of police procedurals including Nordic Noir ones and usually the pace does sort of ebb and flow in order to give the reader time to rest and absorb the new information. In this case, it felt much more like we were full speed ahead at times followed by slamming on the breaks. The times when it was fast-paced and we were getting a lot of action and reveals in the investigation - I loved it. But the times in between really lagged and brought my overall enjoyment down.
While I liked where the investigation eventually lead and the overall reveal, I did feel like most of the time we didn't have a lot of suspects or, at least, not serious suspects. While on paper there were some people who were looked at more closely than others, I never really got the sense that our main two detectives actually found any of them to be serious suspects in the killings. I personally like the sort of mysteries where almost everyone is a very viable suspect and up until the final reveal, it could really be anyone. In this case, it felt like the investigation was just plodding along until the right clue came up.
Overall, I enjoyed this read but felt the pacing wasn't quite working for me and I thought there could have been more of a build up in the overall investigation plot. This is the first book in the Naia Thulin series and while it appears that book 2 (published in 2024) does not have an English translation yet, I would be interested in continuing the series.
