This dark Danish murder mystery starts out with the body of a middle aged woman found in the woods. Detective Louise Rick has lived in the area for most of her life and knows many of the local characters, but this case brings her back in contact with people from her past who she would prefer to forget.  It turns out very difficult to even identify the dead woman, despite a very distinctive scar on her face.  Her partner Eik Nordstrom has a drinking problem and isn’t making her life any easier.  But slowly and gradually they start to make progress on the case, identifying the dead woman as Lismette who had been kept at a local residential facility for girls with cognitive disabilities many years ago. They start to uncover more of the past, but the situation gets more urgent as other women start turning up dead or disappear. The only real relief in the narrative comes from Louise’s friend Camilla who is getting married but is getting very upset by everyone else involved in the wedding, and it may be a disaster. We also learn more about Louise’s past and her relationship with her son. But the main plot about Lismette’s story is the most interesting part of the novel, showing older attitudes towards people with mental disabilities and the mistreatment of the people who lives in the children’s home, who were known as the “forgotten girls.”

This novel is one in a series by Sara Blaedel featuring detective Louise Rick, and previous ones will have already explored Rick’s earlier life.  She shows us the attitudes of people in rural Denmark rather than the city, and this crime novel shares the bleakness of many other Scandinavian mysteries. That existential angst can get tiresome but Blaedel keeps the plot moving fast enough to keep the novel interesting.

The unabridged audiobook performed by Christine Lakin is done well; occasionally Lakin uses rural American accents for some characters, which is confusing and a little odd since she also uses something like Danish accents and Irish accents, but it is not a massive problem.

© 2015 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York