The Summer of Ellen

March 25, 2019
One evening in Copenhagen, architect Jacob Nielson, the embittered, alcohol-fueled, middle-aged narrator of this bleak standalone from bestseller Friis (the Nina Borg series with Lena Kaaberbøl), shows up at the building where his ex-wife, Kirsten, lives and buzzes her apartment. Not surprisingly, Kirsten doesn’t let him in. Soon afterward, Jacob receives a phone call from his great-uncle Anton Svenningsen, who lives on a farm in Djursland and with whom he’s been out of touch for years. Anton wants his help finding a missing woman named Ellen, and Jacob agrees to return to the farm. Jacob hasn’t spent time in that part of Denmark since the summer of 1978, when he was an excessively autoerotic
15-year-old obsessed with Ellen, a member of a hippie commune, and with the unsolved disappearance of a friend’s sister. Friis alternates between that summer and Jacob’s present-day search for Ellen, with the emphasis on the dual story of Jacob’s coming-of-age and his midlife crisis. Mainstream readers who can relate to the self-pitying Jacob will be most rewarded.

Starred review from May 1, 2019
Nordic noir gets another complicated, flawed hero who is compelled to explore inner as well as outer mysteries in this second stand-alone (following What My Body Remembers, 2017) by Danish writer Friis, who also coauthors the New York Times best-selling Nina Borg series with Lene Kaaberb�l. This branch of Nordic noir could be called Danish desolate; the settings, in contemporary Copenhagen and on a Jutland farm in 1978, mirror the psychological landscape by focusing on the bleak and challenging. The hero, Jacob, is indeed a melancholy Dane, an alcoholic and failing architect (the metaphor extends subtly and thrillingly to his own life), trying to come to grips with divorce. Jacob's great-uncle Anton asks him to revisit the farm he lives on in low-lying Jutland (the fact that Jutland is flat and beset by high winds is another brilliant atmospheric touch). The ninetysomething Anton wants Jacob to find out what happened to the beautiful Ellen, a hippie who lived on a neighboring commune in the '70s, a girl Jacob loved. Terrible revelation after terrible revelation follows, along with a second mystery, as Jacob tries to confront, and protect himself from, the knowledge of what happened to Ellen.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2019

During a messy divorce, Copenhagen architect Jacob Nielson receives a call from his elderly great-uncles, Anton and Anders, who haven't been in touch with him since 1978, when Jacob last visited the brothers' farm in rural Jutland just outside of Copenhagen. Anton, who has cared for Anders at their family farm for most his life, asks Jacob to locate Ellen, a hippie who lived with them during the summer of 1978. Ellen disappeared without a word after she witnessed an incident in the brothers' home that she could just not tolerate. While Jacob seeks answers from neighbors about Ellen's whereabouts, he learns more regarding the death of Lise--a young woman who was murdered the same summer Ellen vanished. VERDICT Friis, coauthor with Lene Kaaberb�l of the "Nina Borg" mysteries, excels in her second solo novel (after What My Body Remembers). Readers of Nordic noir literature will appreciate the setting, social critique, and the classic whodunit story. Fans of Henning Mankell's "Wallander" series will enjoy the excellent character development with twists and turns throughout. [See Prepub Alert, 11/12/18.]--Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2019

Following up her triumphant solo debut, What My Body Remembers, the coauthor of the big-hit Nina Borg series takes embittered architect Jacob to his great-uncle Anton's remote Jutland farm so that he can determine what happened in summer 1978 to beautiful commune dweller Ellen.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.