Print Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (August 12, 2025)
From Goodreads.com: When a body is discovered in an abandoned building, Denmark police investigators Liam Stark and Dea Torp are called to the scene to investigate. They learn that the victim has several shallow wounds all over his body that were inflicted over the span of several weeks.
With a pile of open cases including two missing teenage girls, Liam and Dea are staggering under the weight of their already heavy case load. Tension in town heats up when two more bodies are discovered with the same shallow wounds as the first victim and their suspects list has dried up. Liam and Dea come to the alarming conclusion that they have another serial killer on their hands. And it’s only a matter of time before they strike again.
As the investigation continues, Liam and Dea worry that the missing teens might be connected to the murders. As the clock ticks down, they have to uncover who is killing these victims and if they can bring the girls home before they’re next under the killer’s knife.
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My Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
This book was a struggle for me to get through for a few different reasons. To begin with, I'm going to be honest here, with the exception of Monika, Liam and Helene, I had absolutely no idea how to pronounce any of the other names in the book. This is entirely due to the fact that I am an American and these names are Danish. While this didn't take me out of the book entirely, it did lead to a few moments of confusion when the author would occasionally switch from calling someone by their first name to calling them by their last.
Moving on to the plot, while there were some moments of urgency near the end, I felt like it took entirely way too long to get there (and that is overlooking the fact that most police work I would imagine is pretty tedious). For example there is one story-line that has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of it, but when taken in the context of the story would have made sense for the chief of police to react more urgently when the same thing appeared to happen to someone she cared about. Yet it didn't. It took almost two days (or longer) for her to even admit there was a potential problem. Then there is a break-up that seemingly comes out of the blue, and the reveal of the perpetrator shortly thereafter, which was shocking only because there had been nothing, not even subtly hinted at, to make you even look at this character twice.
On the plus side, while there are two authors listed for this one, I could not tell which one had written what part, that is how seamlessly their styles blended together and I liked that. However, I will say that (and hopefully this was revised before the publication date as I am reviewing an advanced reader copy) there were some glaring errors with the way a restraining order was handled. At one point it says that one of their victims had gotten a five year restraining order against Monika, only Monika was the one who was being harassed and therefore she would have been the one to take out the restraining order. And while this is mentioned once, it quickly reverts back to "this is why the victim got his restraining order". Even though he was the one that violated it and was subsequently fined for said violations.
Overall, I feel like I will definitely be in the minority with my thoughts on this one, but that's fine. I learned a long time ago that not every book is geared towards every reader. So if this one sounds interesting to you, I recommend checking it out for yourself.
DISCLAIMER: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher. This has not affected my review in any way. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are 100% my own.
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