The Chestnut Man

Starred review from July 1, 2019
Sveistrup, creator and writer of the TV series The Killing, makes his stellar debut with this classy procedural, a revenge saga played out in present-day Copenhagen by characters—both police and villains—excruciatingly true to life. By-the-book detective Naia Thulin hopes for advancement to the national cybercrime center, but she currently works under the opportunistic head of Copenhagen’s Major Crimes Division. As a horrifying serial mutilation-murder wave begins, she’s saddled with seedy, authority-scorning Mark Hess as her temporary partner. Almost immediately, forensic evidence links the killer, who leaves a spooky doll made of chestnuts by each of his victims, to the year-old cold case of Minister of Social Affairs Rosa Hartung’s 12-year-old daughter, kidnapped and presumed dead. With rapid-fire cinematic cuts from one brutal scene after another, Sveistrup illuminates the complexities of urban police work amid abundant inefficiencies, a plethora of red herrings, and government corruption. This one cries out for a sequel—and a film adaptation. Agent: Sofie Voller, Politiken Literary Agency.

This superlatively good audio thriller, a first novel by the accomplished screenwriter S�ren Sveistrup, is made almost unbearably vivid by narrator Peter Noble. The story hits all the usual gory marks of the genre but is also something more, psychologically richer, better written, and surprisingly moving. A chestnut man is a doll made in autumn by Danish schoolchildren, used here as the creepy signature of a particularly devastating serial killer. That you feel a sneaking sympathy for the murderer's rage when you finally understand what has triggered it says volumes about Sveistrup's skill, and the power of narration. Noble performs this demanding plot with total investment in the story, as if he were as caught in its grip as the characters. Impressive and haunting. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine