The Tenant

September 16, 2019
For landlady and retired Copenhagen academic Esther de Laurenti, the protagonist of Danish choreographer Engberg’s fast-moving first novel and series launch, the murder of her 21-year-old tenant, student Julie Stender, strikes alarmingly close to home. Not only was Julie attacked just two floors below Esther’s flat, but key details of the crime, including intricate carvings on the victim’s face inflicted while she was still alive, are sickeningly familiar to her—because they’re lifted from the manuscript on which aspiring mystery writer Esther is working. The sometimes uneasy juxtaposition of realistic characters like feisty Esther and the perennially bickering detective duo assigned to the case with the unabashedly artificial—think a subsequent victim discovered mid-ballet in a theater chandelier—runs throughout. The undertow from the overly ambitious plot drowns any sense of plausibility, but Engberg’s sparkling cast and palpable evocation of a society U.S. readers will find similar yet foreign keep the pages turning pleasurably. Agent: Niclas Salomonsson, Salomonsson Agency (Sweden).

Narrator Graeme Malcolm is convincing when pronouncing Danish place names, a good thing in a Copenhagen-based thriller, and he's not terrible at dialogue. Unfortunately, he seems not to understand that the narrative material between characters' speeches is part of the story and delivers it in an absentminded singsong, as you might the boilerplate at the beginning or end of a fairy tale. "So the king proclaimed that tomorrow would be the wedding, and . . ." It's a shame, as the plot is well made, if baroque, and many of the characters convincingly drawn. If a murder can be said to be fun, watch for the one in the middle of a ballet at the Royal Danish Theatre. (Engberg is a former dancer and choreographer.) A chandelier is involved. B.G. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine