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A young woman is stabbed, a pattern of lines carved into her face, and it is soon discovered that the owner of the second-floor apartment she rents in Copenhagen has been writing a novel — and the way the young woman was killed had been detailed in the manuscript three weeks before the murder.
The two police detectives in charge of the case, Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner, have to figure out if retiree Esther, the writer, who lives on the top floor of the building she grew up in and inherited from her parents, had anything to do with the murder or if she is in danger of being killed herself. A young friend of Esther’s who spends a lot of time in her apartment seems to be a good suspect: he has motive and opportunity and just seems a bit off. But the signs pointing to him seem almost too obvious. Was he framed? As the investigation continues, the victim’s father seems suspect, and then a local artist. There are too many threads connecting a number of players, and the victim’s background may or may not be relevant. As Korner and Werner try to unwind the twisted threads and make sense of why the young woman was killed and by whom, they must also try to protect those who may still in danger.
The Tenant is a solid murder mystery/thriller that had me rooting for a few of the characters, some a bit more than others, in addition to trying to figure out the mystery. The book spends a lot of time digging into the characters, especially Esther and the detective Jeppe Korner, and it seems fairly clear from reading it (and then confirmed from a little looking on Goodreads) that it’s establishing the beginnings of a series centered on the two detectives (Anette doesn’t get as much focus as her partner here, so maybe she will get more attention in future books). The book and two sequels were published originally in Danish, with this one the first to be translated into English. I enjoyed it but won’t necessarily be waiting eagerly for the sequels to be made available in English.
Rated: High, for about two dozen instances of strong language and about the same number of uses of milder language. Sexual content involves some sex scenes with either low or moderate detail and some references to anatomy and a man considering his private parts, as well as references to a young woman having had a number of lovers, two of whom were far older. Violence involves descriptions of the stabbing of a young woman, with mutilation of her face and a lot of blood; a murder of another character that involves no gore; one character is beaten and receives some stab wounds but not killed.
* I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
