When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist—and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows both more urgent and more dangerous.

I love a Nordic crime mystery. Instead of the usual bleak scenes in the dark, cold, snowy winter, this novel is set during summer in Copenhagen. The little quirk of the author is to open many scenes between the two detectives with food - it was both amusing and served as a personality marker for each detective.

As is typical, the crime is solved before the end of the book - but that leaves room for the WHYs of the crime. Entertaining twists, right up until the end.

I received an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This novel has several layers. There are the characters who live in a small apartment building that is shared with its elderly owner, where people are found murdered. There is the layer of seemingly pot-boiler mystery, in which the author periodically pokes fun at herself for choosing some fairly way-out there plot points. There is the whole recently-separated-cop-mourning-his-failed-marriage trope, where the conflicts are presented rather well. And there is the gradual reveal of who the actual murderer is too. I liked how she pulled together these various threads into making the whole cloth of this novel, and highly recommend it to mystery fans.

At first it was a little different due to it being scandinavian so some of the terminology was a little different. So we have someone murdered and mutilated and all these characters. We meet Esther the landlady and an author and she shows the police that this murder is like the book she has been writing and has not finished. and man does take off, all these secrets start coming out, but the questions do as well. Is her story fiction, or is for real the twist and turns it takes will keep you on your toes..

A standout Nordic thriller! The Tenant has the traditional sparse style I have come to love in this genre, yet the character development was still robust. Even minor characters were multi-faceted and memorable. The writing was incredibly engaging, which can be hard with a slow burn thriller, but it never felt slow or meandering- I was enthralled from start to finish. The mystery was well developed and free of plot holes, avoiding the trap of an unbelievable explanation which ruins the endings of many psychological thrillers. I recommend everyone get a copy of this book when it is released!

Review: The Tenant by Katrine Engberg

Thank you to Scout Press and NetGalley for providing me an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review.

I love a good murder mystery/cop drama. The Tenant checks all the boxes for me. There were enough murders involved to keep me interested. I really liked the fact that the novel begins with a bang. Not literally, but you can expect to be drawn into the story from the first page. The story behind the first murder is complicated, but Ms. Engberg discloses information at just the right pace so that the story is easy to follow and not even a little convoluted. I am also happy to report that I was unable to positively decide on the guilty party until the author was ready for me to make this logical step. I like that. It is no fun to know “who dun it” too early in the read. Once the murderer is revealed, there is enough of the novel left to wrap up the lives of all the remaining characters. I do not feel that anything was left undone.

There are a lot of characters in the novel. But, again, Ms. Engberg does a great job of making each character interesting and easy to remember even though most of the characters are connected in some way. The main characters (not counting the dead) are Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner. Jeppe and Anette are the main detectives on the case. I really enjoyed their relationship. It was not messy with veiled sexual tension between the partners like some authors use to complicate the story. I learned just enough about their private lives to make both Jeppe and Anette interesting and to come to know what to expect from each of them as the story unfolds. I like being comfortable with the main characters of the novel I am reading, and I felt this way about Jeppe and Anette.

The Tenant is definitely a page-turner. Yes, I lost some sleep and didn’t get some things done around the house, because I couldn’t put this one down. It was worth it!

My stars rating for The Tenant: 4.5

A young woman is brutally murdered in her apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. They establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends who is also novelis.

But Esther’s role is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprid? Anette and Jeppe must dig more deeply into the two women’s pasts to discover the puppet-master. This is an electrifying thriller. It will keep you on the edge and won't be able to put it down!!

What the publisher has to say about this book:
When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink, and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist—and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real-life grows both more urgent and more dangerous.

But Esther’s role in this twisted scenario is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprit—or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance? Anette and Jeppe must dig more deeply into the two women’s pasts to discover the identity of the brutal puppet-master pulling the strings in this electrifying literary thriller.

What I have to say:
This storyline was riveting, and I really enjoyed the way the characters were written. I highly recommend this nail-biter!

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for the eARC.
This is a very good Scandi Noir read, I enjoyed it a lot.
A young woman is found dead in her apartment with knife markings on her face, thought to be inflicted while she was still alive. Her landlady is in the midst of writing a mystery that exactly mirrors the killing of her tenant. Is she the murderer?
Jeppe and Anette are the two main detectives trying to solve this and the subsequent murder, but it seems an impossible task. I liked both characters, especially the prickly and refreshing Anette, who doesn't seem to have a filter when she talks.
All in all it was a great read and I will definitely read the next in the series...hope it doesn't take too long before it's translated and published!
Highly recommended.

This took me ages to read. I couldn't get into it at all, and, just when I was able to climb in a little bit, any one of the tremendous number of awful typos made me want to put it back down again.

I loved this book! Creepy? Yup! Scarey? yup! Well written? VERY! The characters were flawed in all the best ways and I am hoping this is a series. Is it?

Those drawn to Scandinavian novels will lavish in the writing style of Katrine Engberg. She stays true to the Danish undertone by providing a rich story line, descriptive setting, and by enlisting a slow burn, detailed-oriented narrative. Those looking for a shock factor or that intense trepidation that many American novelist utilize will be disappointed. This is a great book for the genre and something a bit different. 4 stars.

Thank you to #NetGalley for this ARC of #TheTenant, which I read and reviewed voluntarily. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Danish writer Katrine Engberg’s debut novel, “The Tenant,” comes highly touted as a mesmerizing thriller guaranteed to keep readers glued to their chair. That’s a bit grandiose, in my opinion, because I found it slow in the beginning, a little more readable in the middle stages, but slowing down again at the end. There was too much going on with coincidences that were too implausible. It was an okay book, but I have read better from other Scandinavian authors.

A young woman is found brutally murdered in her own apartment. The killer went as far as making intricate carvings on her face, some while she was still alive. Her landlord, an alcoholic artist and aspiring writer, has a novel in the works that, as it turns out, describes the killing to a T before it even happens. The question is, of course, how can that be? Is the middle aged woman landlord a murderer, or did someone get her manuscript and follow it in committing the murder? If so, why? Two Copenhagen police detectives get the case.

The two detectives have to dig deeply into both women’s pasts to decipher the details. Who is directing these strange events and who gets exonerated? The characterizations are well done and but their settings, in my opinion, are not placed appropriately in the timeframes that are described. Some readers have praised the author’s tale as a human-interest masterpiece with a caring cast of characters. I find that to be somewhat deceptive in that most of the characters are not caring individuals but are mainly self serving with little interest in others. As it turns out, both detectives are flawed in their own right and their own sleuthing has shortcomings.

I read the book but my attention flagged throughout. Frankly I was more interested to getting finished than I was in the story. I encourage you to read it for yourself. My viewpoint might not be appropriate because I never considered it to have a strong back-story from the start.

A gritty, intense, fast-paced, riveting, artful melding of stunning psychological thrills and nail-biting suspense. Truly a MUST for your TBR list!

#NetGalley #TheTenant

*I received a complimentary ARC of this book from NetGalley & Gallery, Pocket Books in order to read and provide a voluntary and honest review, should I choose to do so.

Highly enjoyable crime thriller. The characters and plot are interesting and the plot held my attention throughout the whole story.

Absolutely loved this book. Loved the main characters, Investigators Jeppe Kørner and Anette Werner. I do hope this book is the first in a very long series with these two in it.

The plot was great. A few twists and turns that us crime-thriller-mystery readers like. The minor characters all reminded one not to judge a book by its cover. The ending with the reasoning of the killings was quite good.

It starts on August 8 which was fun for me as thats the day I started reading it. If I didn't have life getting in the way, I could have easily read this in one day.

Please give me more from Katrine Engberg. She's one to watch.

Thank you Gallery/Scout Press and NetGalley for this arc.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of The Tenant!

Overall I found this book to be just ok. While there were some minor twists nothing really jumped out at me and really shocked me, which is what I look for in a good thriller/mystery. This story is about Julie Stender who ends up the victim of a gruesome murder, which bares a striking resemblance to her landlord, Esther’s unfinished murder mystery novel. Detectives Jeppe and Anette along with a few other colleagues are assigned the case and for the most part keep hitting dead ends. While I did read the book rather quickly, I kept finding myself wanting more excitement or a bigger twist and it just didn’t come. I also found it a little difficult to read some of the dialogue specific to Denmark.

Danish mysteries are not often published for american readers. I am happy to report that being a major fan of thrillers I was delighted to read this one. There are some typos that need to be addressed but the characters and plot lines were both well drawn. Jeppe, the main protagonist, was a sympathetic police officer whose life was devastated by divorce. He struggled to solve the multiple murders and come to terms with his own loss. Overall, I recommend this book to fellow detective fiction lovers. Copenhagen makes for an interesting backdrop to the novel.

I'm not sure why I'm drawn to Scandinavian crime fiction, but this was a great one! Jeppe and Anette are detectives who are called to the scene of a murdered young woman, Julie who has odd markings on her face and has been brutally killed. And it appears the woman who owns the house she's been living in is writing a book about a crime very similar to this. What's the connection? All I can say is it's multi-layered and has many suspects--all of whom play a role in this novel to some extent. I almost needed to take notes until I just decided to immerse myself in the drama and let it play out. It was incredibly satisfying and I hope there's a sequel as the detectives were well-drawn and so very human!

The Tenant by author Katherine Engberg is a fast paced and character filled thriller that does not disappoint! Absolutely recommend, full review to come closer to release date.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an arc copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am purposely sparing any details of this tantalizing book to avoid spoilers. It’s a book that begs to be read. An absolutely fabulous mystery, told in the spare yet delicious style of the best Scandinavian writers, The Tenant weaves a gruesome tale of seemingly senseless murders with a despicable, debased, and virtually inhuman, backstory..

Every character in this book, even those dead by the time we meet them, leaps off the page and lands firmly in the reader’s face. They are simply brilliant, those who are good and those who are evil . Even the characters who play the smallest of roles in the hunt for a depraved killer who carves up the victims’ faces, apparently just for the fun of it, sing in the harmonious chorus that makes up this story.

And, thankfully, The Tenant is not solely death. In the surface, a brutal and mystifying crime is solved. But at its core, the story is about life - what it means to be truly alive; to hit rock bottom and then climb back up into the light; to experience the wealth of feelings that define our essential humanity. To create this core of caring humanity and humility entwined in this dark and dangerous tale is the mark of an exceptional writer. I look forward to reading more by this gifted author.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.