Print Length: 416 pages
Publisher: Penguin Group Dutton (March 11, 2025)
From Goodreads.com: When innkeeper Dorthe Hyllested is found murdered, the police are surprised and puzzled to discover a concealed nursery in her upstairs apartment. As far as her friends and family knew, the recently widowed Dorthe was childless—so who lived in this secret toy-strewn room? And more importantly, where is the child now?
Detective Louise Rick has just taken on a challenging new job as head of the freshly created Mobile Task Unit, which is charged with solving the most difficult cases all over Denmark. With Dorthe’s murder as her first investigation and the clock ticking to find the missing child, Louise is dismayed to learn that none of her handpicked group of seasoned investigators have been approved for transfer to her new unit. Instead, she must cobble together a brand-new, unproven team from a group of officers she’s never met. Worst of all, the case will necessitate collaborating with the Missing Persons Department—which will mean working closely with Louise’s former fiancé, Eik, who abruptly broke things off last year, leaving her devastated.
Could the mystery of Dorthe’s murder and the hidden child have something to do with the cabin in the woods behind the inn where men are often seen coming and going at all hours? With no witnesses to Dorthe’s murder and no real leads, and an unproven and potentially untrustworthy team behind her, Louise finds herself grasping at unlikely connections—but the twisted story she begins to uncover turns out to be darker and more dangerous than she ever imagined. . . .
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My Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
I have read other books in this series in the past, although it has been awhile so I'm a bit confused why this one isn't listed as part of the Louise Rick series when it obviously should be. And while there appears to be a lot that has changed for Louise since I last read one of the novels, this one was easy enough to pick up on and understand.
And sadly, now I remember why I stopped reading them. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there will be many others who will enjoy this book much more than I did. But for me, it just comes across as lackluster and tedious.
I found Louise to be much more dislikable in this book than the others, much in the way that she bossed Camilla (her friend who happened to be a journalist) around, basically forcing her to agree to look into the case she was working even after Camilla repeatedly told her that she was taking a much needed break to spend time with her father. This was even more annoying because Louise had already gotten snippy with Camilla about being "pumped for information". I'm sorry what? You cannot basically demand someone to do research on your behalf and then get snippy when they ask questions. There were also a couple of times throughout the book where she just comes off as though she thinks she's better than her colleagues (or at least knows better than they do), and does things the way she wants instead of taking into account what others have to say.
Then there were the continuity issues. For example, when someone is explaining how they murdered someone it is said that they followed their victim to one location where they remained for an hour until the victim returned home. And which point the killer went to their own home to get the murder weapon, and yet someone when they arrived back at the victim's house, the victim themselves had just gotten there? How were they just arriving home if they had already been there when the killer went to retrieve the murder weapon? There is another instance where it is said that Louise went into the living room to spend time with her son and their downstairs neighbor, except shortly before that we are told that Melvin (the neighbor) had returned to his own home, and Jonas (the son) was in his bedroom. Or earlier in the story when it was stated that a couple who may have been a potential witness to a different murder were on their way to Odense, when they stopped and ate lunch in Odense before continuing on. But if they were going to Odense, how could they have already stopped there for lunch? It was all the little things like this that started to add up and wear on me as a reader.
Finally we come to what was probably the biggest disappointment of all. The "twists" that I believe were supposed to be these major moments were as a reader we were expected to gasp in shock just felt.... contrived. To the point that when we got to the last big "twist" involving a church and a child, I was just over it entirely. By that point it just seemed like a meaningless way to drive up the word count and that was all. It added nothing to the story whatsoever.
As I said prior, I do believe this story will appeal to a wide majority of other readers, I'm just starting to think this author just isn't for me.
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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