Thank you to Gallery/Scout Press and NetGalley for my advance reader copy!

We return to another installment of Kørner and Werner’s adventures in crime solving. Fifteen year old Oscar, the some of a prominent family in the art world, is missing and a cryptic note has been left for his parents to find.

My rating for this one was solidly in the middle. I love a good police/crime procedural, but this one moved along at a pace a bit too slow for my liking. As in THE TENANT, Engberg includes details about Anette and Jeppe’s personal lives, but it felt too distracting in this book. I was more worried about Jeppe’s failing relationship and Anette’s thoughts of infidelity than I was about Oscar’s fate. All-in-all, this one got the job done but isn’t particularly noteworthy. I’m not sure if k will continue on with this series or go back to read the second novel.

Yet another fun popcorn thriller. This was my first book by Katrine Enberg. I liked the setting a lot and found it very atmospheric.

Decent police procedural set in a highly atmospheric and moody location. This book is easy to read and the both the plot and characters are nicely written. If you like mysteries and murder investigations, this would be a good one to read.

Each of the books in this series kind of starts slow and then gains momentum until they leave me a bit breathless and dizzy at the end! Sign me up for more! Love these characters and the premise. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this copy for review

I loved this book so much I read it twice. Honestly, when I bought it at the bookstore, I didn't realize it was the same book I had already read through Netgalley. But the cover and cover copy are so intriguing it called to me not once, but twice! After the first chapter, I realized I had read it before, but that didn't keep me from plowing through it a second time. The writing is strong, the mystery well thought-out, and the solitary Nordic setting makes for excellent, page-turning suspense. The I'll read anything Katrine Engberg writes.

I love her books! They are gritty and detailed in nature. I love the characters in this book and think they play well with each other. I am already ready for another!

The Harbor is the third English translated entry in a Nordic mystery series by Katrine Engberg and it is stellar. This time police sergeants Jeppe Korner and his partner Anette Werner are investigating a case involving the disappearance of fifteen-year-old Oscar Dreyer-Hoff. As they investigate the circumstances, they begin to realize that this isn’t simply a typical runaway. Instead, there are other factors that will have to be resolved in order to find the teenager. And, they must find him quickly.

As with her other books, Ms Engberg has written a compelling and well-devised police procedural. It is filled with interesting characters, descriptions of Copenhagen that are outstanding, and a plot that will definitely hold a reader’s attention. The relationship between the two partners is realistic and their personal lives contribute a great deal to the story line.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed The Harbor and I highly recommend it.

I desperately wanted to love this book; I requested it as I was discovering the Nordic noir genre and it sounded exactly like something I would enjoy. I made multiple attempts at reading it this year, but it never clicked for me and it’s ultimately a DNF.

When a teenage boy goes missing and another body is found at the local dump, small town detectives are on the hunt to figure out the connection and if they can find the missing boy before it's too late. Are they connected? Or do the towns people just WANT them to be connected? Because that would make things much more simpler... right?

From my blog: Always With a Book

This is the fourth book in Katrine Engberg’s Korner and Werner series. I’ve read the previous two books that have been translated into English, though I’m not quite sure why the second book in the series has not been translated. But either way, I am absolutely loving this series and even though this book came out back in February, it was more of a too many books not enough time thing than anything else. So of course, with November being #NordicNovember, this book was a priority for me…plus the next book in the series, The Sanctuary, comes out in early 2023, and I plan on getting to that one as soon as it is available!

Once again, we have a very atmospheric and dark crime thriller. A boy has gone missing and as Korner and Werner start investigating, they end up with more questions than answers. There are plenty of suspicious characters, all who appear to be keeping secrets and this certainly keeps you on your toes, wondering who could be responsible.

In addition to the case, we also get that continued character development that I love when reading a series. Here, we see how the stress of their jobs takes a toll on their personal lives and their relationships and I appreciated that the author explored this. This is something that is real and relatable.

I love this series and am quite eager to see what happens in the next installment. As always, if you do decide to pick it up, I encourage you to read it in order, though each book does have a self-contained case so that they can be read as stand-alones, it’s the character development that builds from book to book.

3.5 In Copenhagen a fifteen year old boy goes missing. Korner and Werner have this case and there seems to be more questions than answers. Is he a runaway or has he come to harm? The more that is revealed the more tangled the threads become, and there are multi threads, multi suspects. The investigation becomes the forefront but in the background personal matters are simmering.

A good mix of detective work and the personal lives of the detectives. I have a weak spot for these Nordic mysteries and I enjoy this series. Solid and we'll written. I love this cover, really makes me want to visit there one day. But then again, hope springs eternal

We pick up Jeppe Kørner and Anette Werner when they begin to investigate a body that turns up in a waste incineration plant. A boy goes missing, and his entire family is dragged into the saga.
Esther makes an appearance, which ultimately ties some loose ends together. Greggers is aging and failing and doesn’t have a big role here this time around.
This is a three of five stars for me, as I struggled (a little) to get to a point where I wanted to finish. There were several subplots at work but we weren’t getting too close to a “mystery solved” fast enough. Interpersonal relationships with Jeppe and Anette were a factor but a lot of detail could have been spared because neither meant much in the end.
Perhaps I was slightly disappointed in the conclusion as it felt rushed, and somewhat hasty.
I did finish, and I am glad that I did. Having a solution is better than open ended.
Thank you to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for the advanced reading copy in exchange for an unbiased opinion.

Having visited Denmark, and in particular Copenhagen, I was drawn to this Scandinavian noir mystery because of its setting, but soon found myself enjoying the characters as well The story begins with the police being called to investigate a missing 15 year old boy. Has he been kidnapped or run away? Is he living or dead? The cast of characters include some immediately suspect family members all of whom appear to be hiding secrets, as well as friends and business associates with their own twisted back stories. In other words this a rich mix of potential suspects to keep the reader guessing.
Being a Scandinavian mystery the police also have personal issues that affect their ability to do their jobs. If you are looking for Northern angst, you have come to the right story. Fortunately, despite their problems, they keep the story moving towards its satisfactory resolution. Not a happy ending, of course. This is, remember, a noir mystery.

I wanted to really like this book since it’s part of a series and I’m always looking for new series. Unfortunately I found it very, I guess stilted would be the word. Characters responses seemed abrupt and difficult to understand. Perhaps part of it is the translation but I also found the overall story to be rather boring.

I read about 15% of this, and I just couldn’t keep up with the constant POV changes. I might not have been in the right mindset to read this right now, and may come back to it later, but I really wish it was written more from just the detective’s POVs. I think it would have been better for me. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sharing this free copy with me.

I had been waiting to this sequel to The Tenant and The Butterfly House for qutie a while, but this one seemed to drag on. I still enjoyed it and it kept me interested. Just not as much as the first two in this series. I'll be waiting for the 4th book because I'm hoping that Korner and Werner aren't done working together yet!

I enjoyed this lighter version of Scandinavian noir. Though it is the third in the series, I was able to jump right in and understand everything. I did think that the subplot with the elderly woman and her dying roommate was excess and a good editor could have cut it. But the writing was engaging and the plotting clever.

A boy disappears leaving an ambiguous letter. Unsure of exactly what it means or for whom it is intended Korner and Warner (from prior books) set out to find the boy before it is too late.

I love crime and detective fiction and the Kørner and Werner series is by far one of my favorites to fill both of these genres at once. The Harbor is another great installment even though I am STILL waiting for them to publish book 2, and I am not salty about that at all. Katrine Engberg has quickly become yet another of my favorite authors and I love both her characters and the way she tells a story. The translator Tara F. Chace also seems to have done a wonderful job, and nothing about the book didn't make sense to me thanks to it being translated properly. I am always happy to be back in the world of Jeppe and Anette and I thought the case was very well thought out and complex. I really had no idea where the whole thing with Oscar was going to go, and that coupled with the interesting side story Anette has going on made things both tense and very curious to me.

Just like with the previous installments I listened to the audiobook and once again it was narrated by the very talented Mr. Graeme Malcolm. I have now listened to him voice several novels and he knocks it out of the park every single time. Without him, I wouldn't know how to say half of the names in this series, and I think listening to them is extremely helpful as well as engaging. I love that along with all the mystery and crime in The Harbor there is still a dash of humor which ends up being very helpful considering how dark the story went. I also loved how just like with the prior books of the series, we learned even more about Jeppe and Anette's lives, and I do enjoy the way Engberg uses several viewpoints to get us to the end. I am definitely in this series for the long haul and highly recommend the whole thing to fans of detective fiction, thrillers, mysteries, crime fiction, and Nordic noir.

Thank you to the publishers for my advanced listening and reader copies of this book. All opinions and thoughts are my own.

8 / 10 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2022/04/08/the-harbor-by-katrine-engberg-review/

This was a confusing, murky case set on the Øresund between Zealand and Scania, between Copenhagen and Sweden. The Sound gives the whole book an overcast, grey feel—much like the cover itself. Though not all the case and its avenues take place or have anything to do with the waters, they certainly feel like the focus for the book.

I want to make this clear up front: I really enjoyed this one. The murky, grey, confusing feel to the case, with all the clues that may or may not relate, the leads that sped off on tangents or eventually wormed their way back to the heart of it all—it all worked quite well for me. And when everything came together in the end: oh, it was magnificent! The thing is, however, that when you have a story with so many false-starts, with so much deception, it doesn’t help to add other, less… related aspects to an already twisting tale.

While I enjoyed the initial release, the Tenant, I definitely liked the second book better due in no small part to its inclusion of the detectives’ lives. Anette and her baby; Jeppe and his search for love. Both main characters return in the Harbor and once again their personal lives take center stage, but this time it’s all about love. Jeppe and Sarah have taken their relationship to the next level (Sarah has introduced her boyfriend to her daughters, Jeppe has pretty much moved in with the three), but things could be going better. Anette is having problems of her own at home, as her husband Sven hasn’t appeared interested in her anymore. And so she’s been letting her mind wander at work, envisioning sex with all kinds—colleague or suspect alike. Jeppe’s best friend Johannes returns to play a bit part, and while I loved having him (after not seeing him at all in the Butterfly House), I would’ve liked even more from him still. Well, maybe next time. The thing I still cannot fathom is Esther de Laurenti’s (and Gregor’s) inclusion. I complained about it in Book #2—as it didn’t really feel tied to any part of the story, or the main characters within—and I’m going to roast it even more now. Esther, a literature major, is consulted briefly about the opening quote, which is apparently a passage by Oscar Wilde. Full stop. Nevertheless, despite being out of the story after this brief interlude, we continue to share her POVs. In a book of false-leads and tangents, where the story toes an ever-murky line, her inclusion does little other than to distract from an already confusing story, something that is as nonsensical as it is infuriating. “So, we’re going to take a break from this twisting, confusing, but immersive case to go check in on Esther, who really has nothing to do with anything.” While I love developing more backstory on the leads, visiting their lives and seeing their problems and how it all affects their jobs—I don’t understand checking in on someone who barely relates at all to the case, to the detectives, or to the story at all.

As with other Engberg mysteries, or some Nordic Noir, don’t expect a happy ending. Now, I’m not saying there isn’t one. Just that Nordic Noir is so-named for a reason. It’s not grimdark, but it’s not “and they all lived happily ever after”. I mean, there’s certainly a conclusion—which I quite liked, in fact—and it’s definitely enjoyable to the reader, as it ties up any loose ends quite nicely, just: it might not be the happiest. Think of it as “some of them lived, some were happy, and there was some measure of after”.

TL;DR

All in all, the Harbor is probably Katrine Engberg’s most ambitious mystery to date. It’s certainly the most intricate, thrilling, and entirely plausible one. Reality aside, not every mystery can end with a mountain of corpses and a serial killer behind bars. A murky, twisting tale set out over the Øresund and its isles in the Copenhagen harbor, the Harbor chooses an already dark and overcast setting to stage its latest tale, one that replaces a world of greys with that of blues instead. And while it delves even more into the lives of its characters than any release before it, the inclusion of previous characters and their lives—which don’t seem to relate to the case at all—is a mystifying choice, and one that holds the story back from being something truly special. Because at no time during your already twisting and intricate, highly immersive investigation should you take a break to visit someone who has nothing to do with anything, and talk for a while about their lives. This aside, I’d thoroughly recommend the Harbor, and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for Kørner and Werner, and where the series goes from here!