‘Dead Souls’ by Elsebeth Egholm

Published by Headline,
7 May 2015.
ISBN: 978-0-7553-9816-4

Ex-convict Peter Boutrup was the last person to see a young nun alive ... the next day, intrepid diver Kir Røjel is called in to search the convent moat. The nun has been garotted ... as was the victim Kir found in an old box of bones on the seabed – but how can two murders sixty years apart be linked, and what’s the connection with a missing teenager?

This tricksy novel has enough twists to make anyone dizzy. Just as the reader thinks it’s beginning to connect up, then Egholm spins her story in another direction. The main characters draw you in: loner Peter, mourning his lost friend My, living alone with his dog in a house booby-trapped against the biker gang who are determined to pay him back for a previous injury; determined, feisty Kir, whose previous relationship with Detective Mark Bille Hansen has foundered for reasons she doesn’t understand; Mark himself, sidelined in his own police station by the ambitious Anna Bragge. The story is told in the third person, shifting from Peter’s unofficial and unorthodox investigations through Kir’s intuitive reactions to Mark’s policework. The rural Danish setting is an enjoyable change, the body count is high, the action fast, and the final scenes compelling reading.

A very readable Danish crime novel, combining PP with a maverick amateur investigator. This is the second in the series, and although it reads well as a stand-alone, the events of the first book are still important to the characters, so you might like to begin with Three Dog Night.

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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

Elsebeth Egholm was born 17 September 1960. She is a Danish author and journalist whi lives in Jutland, Denmark. She has written several books, and in 2011 published Three Dog Night which was the start of a new series introducing Pewter Boutrup which was an instant best-sellier. She is known internationally as the creator of the television series Those Who Kill, shown on ITV3.

 

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland's scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own