Retribution

Starred review from May 28, 2018
At the start of Jacobsen’s scalding sequel to 2017’s Trophy, Supt. Lene Jensen of Denmark’s national police force attends a lecture on terrorism at Copenhagen police headquarters. It’s been seven months since a suicide bomber struck Tivoli Gardens, the country’s largest amusement park, killing more than 1,000 people. So far no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the police are making no progress on the case. Obsessed by the death of a young Muslim woman she tried to help on a suicide hotline, Lene stubbornly pursues what she regards as links between the woman’s death and the Tivoli disaster. She defies her superiors and risks both her life and that of PI Michael Sander, with whom she worked in Trophy. Distinctive characters range from ineffective police and corrupt government officials to young Muslims preparing to die for their perverse cause. Jacobsen provides a searing view of the intractable conflict between civilized society and terrorists.