The Tenant by Katrine Engberg

January 16, 2020

The Tenant by Katrine Engberg

A young woman is found brutally murdered in her Copenhagen apartment.  The police have few clues and no leads, except that the owner of the building was writing a crime novel that exactly describes the murder.

The plot was complex and original, and I was expecting some really dark Scandinavian noir, like something by Jo Nesbo.  But this one turned out to be disappointing.  It was all over the place – there was too much going on, too much unnecessary backstory.  Too much time was spent on the angst of one of the detectives, and almost no time was spent with the other one.  I found both of the detectives in this police procedural to be unlikable, and neither one seems to be very good at their jobs or enjoy what they do.  Anette is big, loud, sneering, sloppy, and socially inept – not good attributes in a detective.  Jeppe is weak, horny, self-pitying, dependent on pain meds, and socially inept – also not good attributes in a detective.  Their relationship is antagonistic at best.  I also disliked the author’s cutesy decision to give the two detectives rhyming surnames.  I believe this is the first book in a series, but I don’t think I’ll be revisiting Koerner and Werner in the future.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in return for a review.