If a single book sums up the typical Nordic noir serial-killer-thriller then it’s this one. It sticks rigidly to the formula which has made Scandi crime so successful; grisly murders, political intrigue, multiple cliff-hangers, and investigative threads which appear entirely convincing in one chapter, only to be discarded in the next as another red herring leads the detectives astray.

The author, Søren Sveistrup, is better known for his work in TV. He’s the man behind the stunningly successful Forbrydelsen series – The Killing – featuring detective Sarah Lund. And the similarities with The Chestnut Man are inescapable…

There’s an undervalued female investigator; in this case a hardworking single mum who’s highly proficient and efficient, a dedicated stickler for detail. Her mismatched partner is that traditional washout male cop with a tragic personal history, an alcohol problem and a short fuse. He’s half a liability and half a hero, the guy who screws up at certain stages but provides those vital intuitive insights when the investigation stalls.

Inevitably, their boss wants rapid results to please the press pack, so he’s always happy to accept the straightforward solution presented by the bullheaded, ‘happy to beat a confession out of a suspect’ old-school members of the squad. And to please the people who adore domestic dramas, there’s the ‘heart-rending’ mystery of a missing child who may be dead, or maybe not…

The components of The Chestnut Man certainly steer close to cliché, but Sveistrup knows exactly which buttons to push. His experience in episodic TV pays dividends, so you’ve barely recovered from the last gruesome attack before the next victim starts being stalked. It’s a proper page-turner all right and, while the language can’t claim to be literary, the style doesn’t get between the reader and the ratcheting tension.

Apparently Sveistrup is a fan of the traditional whodunit, and if you enjoy solving the mystery yourself then you’re in with a chance. The story is littered with significant hints and suspicions, although it’s also entirely entertaining to just sit back and enjoy as the action unfolds. The murders themselves veer towards the nasty side of crime fiction, staying just shy of torture-porn but skating on thin ice all the same. There are definitely some scenes which might unsettle those of a delicate constitution.

The Chestnut Man delivers little in the way of originality, then, but it hits all the key notes of a ripping Nordic romp. It’s carefully constructed, perfectly paced and cleanly translated. Let’s hope that next time out the author breaks some boundaries with his characters and pushes the format beyond genre stereotypes. He’s certainly got the skill… if his publisher will take the chance.

7/10

The debate as to what makes a good novel, what makes a good crime novel, is never ending. Creative writing courses and manuals talk about plotting, characterisation, upping the stakes, and all manner of other advice. There’s truth in all of this of course, but that isn’t the whole picture. Sometimes a book, tv show, or film, will come along which appears to do all this right and yet for some unfathomable reason it just stinks. Other times something will shine even though the characters aren’t great or the plot is just so-so. Personally, I think that while all the advice is worth listening to (as an aspiring writer myself, I certainly try to listen and learn) there’s a fairy dust which just touches some works, a certain something that one just can’t put one’s finger on.

A great example of this is the TV show The Killing. People have raved about the show, explained why they liked or loved it, but really I don’t think at heart the plot is that original. That said, I loved it. Why? Because it has that fairy dust. It might not have been groundbreaking per se, many stories feature killers and slain teenagers, but it was told in such a way as to make it compelling. So when I learnt that the creator of The Killing, Søren Seistrup, had turned his hand to writing crime fiction I was more than a little interested.

I have to say I was a little put off however when I learnt that Seistrup’s novel, The Chestnut Man, was a serial killer novel. Despite being a crime fiction aficionado, I’m not a big fan of serial killer fiction. To my mind, they’re an overdone trope. The reality is that serial murder is incredibly rare and those that kill in the fiendishly complex ways shown in fiction are rarer still. Yes, there have been the notorious cases like Ed Gein, who made furniture out of his victims, but most have killed their victims in more mundane ways.

It’s not just the rarity of serial killing in reality compared to it’s overload in fiction that bothers me. In crime fiction there’s also a danger of crossing into salaciousness. Recently there was a mini-furore in the crime fiction world when the Staunch Book Prize was launched. The prize sought crime fiction “in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered”. Some luminaries of the genre, such as Val McDermid, saw the prize as an attack on their craft, arguing that violence against women is a fact of life, and that their writing dealt with the world as it was. I situate myself in the middle of these two positions. I read much crime fiction (and some horror, and occasionally some dystopian titles) and don’t shy away from books which feature violence against women (or men, obviously), but equally I see what the Staunch Prize was trying to achieve. In the end it comes down to the fairy dust. Some works of fiction, like The Killing, feature a victim dying violently (whether a man, woman, or even on occasion, a child) and the story is told in such a way that it’s gripping. Other tales might be written just as well, but for some reason the gore and butchery bothers me.

So which was it with The Chestnut Man? Did this story about two mismatched detectives in the Copenhagen murder squad, desperately investigating a series of murders of women, where their limbs are hacked off with a saw, a small doll fashioned from chestnuts left mockingly on the corpse, have the fairy dust magic of Seistrup’s TV show?

Well unfortunately for me it didn’t. That’s not to say The Chestnut Man is not a well written book. It’s very well written, if one defines that as a book that has you turning the pages. I turned those pages, desperate to find out what happens. But I didn’t really enjoy this novel. Throughout, the gore and violence to the female victims bothered me. I found myself yearning to read something that might have been nominated for that Staunch Prize.

I have to stress once again that I’m no prude. I love crime fiction. But I tend towards more political works, noir such as the novels penned by James Elroy and Don Winslow. Do any of these feature women brutally murdered? Yes, of course. One of James Elroy’s most famous books was The Black Dahlia, which certainly featured the brutal murder of a woman. But reading these titles it’s clear that the murders, whether of women or men, are not the point. The violence drives the story forward, the author having bigger things they want to say. This might explain the success of The Killing, the investigation of the murder in that show leading to the expose of grubby corruption. But The Chestnut Man? I just couldn’t escape the feeling that the killings of the women were the point.

Now again, I must stress that I’m not saying this review that every novel, crime or otherwise, must have some weighty message. I have enjoyed more straight forward tales in the past, even serial killer stories, The Silence of The Lambs being a obvious case in point. But this leads me back to the fairy dust argument. If a novel such as the Silence of the Lambs has me enjoying it in such a way that the gruesome violence isn’t at the forefront of my mind, then job well done, the book works for me. If however, as with The Chestnut Man, I can’t help but notice the violence, can’t help but wonder it’s too prurient, then to me it’s failed.

To be sure this is a novel that’s bound to be a roaring success. For a start, I’m under no illusions that there appears to be an insatiable desire for entertainment such as this, that I’m in a distinct minority amongst crime fiction fans; serial killer fiction sells, and I’m sure many reading this review will disagree with my take. And that’s ok, a review can only be a personal opinion. Secondly, written by the creator of a blockbuster TV show as it is, the author’s name alone will ensure sales. And I’m sure the publishers will publicise the title widely. And I have to admit, as I mentioned, I whipped through The Chestnut Man; it’s nothing if not compelling. That all said, if the author writes a sequel, I might just take a pass.

While I have enjoyed a lot of what could be termed ‘Scandinavian Noir’ I have always found the television from the Nordic countries to be more dynamic and involving than their literature. Series such as The Killing and The Bridge, despite complex plots, focus as much on the human element as on solving the crimes. Søren Sveistrup, writer of the former series has, perhaps not surprisingly, written a novel more akin to those television series than to his contemporaries on the bookshelves.
The Chestnut Man is a fast-moving crime novel. The plot, as complex and intriguing as it is, fairly thunders along. Two detectives, the young ambitious, Naia Thulin and, burnt out jaded Europol cop, Mark Hess, who has been sent back to Copenhagen while an investigation is held into possible misconduct, are initially suspicious of each other. However, as they investigate the murders of two women in separate incidents, the pair are drawn together as their theories that the crimes are connected, not only to each other but possibly to the disappearance of a senior politician’s daughter a year ago, put them out of step with their colleagues who consider the early crime solved as a murder, despite the lack of a body.
Like The Killing, The Chestnut Man is a mixture of police procedural, politics and familial relationships and it is the impact of the crimes on the families - the Government minister and her husband who are struggling with the loss of their daughter, Thulin’s distress at neglecting her own daughter because of her career ambitions - which, I feel, sets the novel apart. An entirely satisfying crime story, the book also sheds some light on another side of the Danish capital, the poorer tenements, the immigrant communities.
I enjoyed The Chestnut Man immensely and look forward to more from Søren Sveistrup, especially if he revisits Thulin and Hess.

"'I found it quite by chance. We did a routine check of the little doll, the Chestnut Man, because it was hanging to close to the body... the fingerprint on the Chestnut Man - at least five points on it - are identical with Kristin Hartung's fingerprints.'"

Naia Thulin works in the Major Crimes Division at Copenhagen Police in Denmark. Fed up of their backward ways and keen for a promotion to the National Cyber Crime Centre, she is saddled with Europol drop-out Mark Hess. Whilst they don't immediately get on, they soon see they are kindred spirits in their dogged determination to identify the killer haunting Copenhagen.

Meanwhile Rosa Harting, Minister for Social Affairs returns to work after a year's absence following the abduction and presumed murder of her twelve year old daughter, Kristine.

Suddenly women start disappearing and being found murdered, missing limbs and Thulin and Hess investigate. Hartung is drawn in when strange chestnut men (little figures made by children out of chestnuts and a Danish nursery rhyme) are found near the bodies of the murdered women; each have one of Kristine's fingerprints on them. Thulin and Hess suspect that there’s a connection between the Hartung case, the murdered women and the killer who is spreading fear throughout the country. Time is running out, because the murderer is on a mission that is not over.

This debut novel, from the creator of The Killing, is a masterclass in both a police procedural and a thriller. The characters are well drawn, and worth investing in (particularly Thulin) and the plot is tight, pacy and engaging, perfect Scandi-noir. I read this easily, keen to know the outcome and would recommend this to fans of The Killing, police procedurals and thrillers. I was a little disappointed I guessed who the killer was just over midway through.

Just when a high-profile couple have had to accept that their 12-year-old daughter had been murdered a year ago and they will never be able to get her remains back, two more gruesome murder sites are discovered. There is no obvious connection between the families that have been slain but something from the first murder connects to both of them. It seems impossible to fathom without admitting that unthinkable errors have been made.
This is quite a large book to read but to be honest I could have read it every day for a month and still not had enough. The characters were fascinating from the behind closed doors ministers family and how each of them seemed to grieve in their own way, to the matching of Thulin and Hess, the detectives thrown together to work the murder scenes.
The murders were torturous and gruesome, that begins for the reader in the aftermath and discovery, rather than the event, believe me you really need easing in gently as it isn’t for the faint hearted. The thread that connects them visually is figure of a Chestnut man left at both crime scenes, besides obvious similarities in the killings.
Thulin and Hess make for an unusual pairing that shouldn’t work but each brings something special to this unique twosome and it is pure genius. They quickly became my favourite characters in the story. As it progresses there is enough red herrings to make a Grimsby fisherman happy but wow what a story. This is a beauty. The author played me like a Maestro does an orchestra, he teased me, kept me hanging onto every word and when I thought it was all over, even came back for an encore. This is perfection! Bravo!

Set in Copenhagen and written by the author of The Killing this is a highly recommended read.
It took a while for me to get through the first few chapters as I found it a little complex and in-depth but is so worthwhile continuing. Gruesome murdered bodies each one having a little chestnut man by them.
It is a long book with many twists and turns, I thought I had worked out who the killer was but I was totally wrong. It is gruesome, psychological and addictive. It is deep, mis-leading, twisted and riveting and would make another great TV series hit for this author. The murders are decribed in such great detail and played havoc with my imagination - not a bed time read.
This a must for anyone who enjoys a really good psychological thriller - you will certainly find all that and more within this book.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what to write in this review as I’ve been finding it hard to put into words how much I enjoyed it. The writing is just excellent and although I’ve been really fortunate to read a lot of very good books recently, the writing in this particular book just stood out as a cut above the rest.

The way the author drew me into the story made me feel as if I was living the investigation alongside Thulin and Hess. I was fully invested and I was all in and desperate to know what would happen.

This is a long book at over 500 pages, considerably longer than a lot of other books out there at the moment but if anything, I just didn’t want it to end! Every page that drew me nearer to the conclusion, despite being eager to find out what would happen made me melancholy at the thought that it was almost over.

You know that feeling you get when you get to the end of a really good TV series and you’re disappointed because you doubt the next thing you watch will be as good? Well that’s how I feel now!

I loved reading how the relationship develops between Thulin and Hess. It made me reminisce about the two lead police detectives in The Killing as there are a lot of similarities. These two characters in particular are really well rounded throughout the book with solid backgrounds and issues that made me feel like I knew them on an intimate level.

The murders are gruesome in this book, I’ll make no bones about that, but it shows the dark depraved mind of the serial killer and as you might have guessed, it all leads back to a theme surrounding ‘Chestnut Men’.

I absolutely loved everything about this book and for me it was pretty much the perfect book as I really didn’t want to stop reading. It was the last thing I was reading at night and the first thing I wanted to read in the morning and it’s one of those reads I will remember for a long time to come and I want to tell everyone about!

This book kept me hooked and I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened at the end. It was an easy book to read, the story flowed and was very descriptive.

Thulin and Hess were trying to work out who was behind killing people and chopping parts of their body off and leaving a little chestnut man behind. Was he a clue? How was he linked to the case?

This is a full on investigative case and works well, full of detail and must have taken a lot of research to do, very impressive. I would read this author again.

This is a grisly serial killer drama set in Copenhagen. A year after the disappearance and apparent murder of the daughter of a high profile politician, a series of gruesome murders of young women begins to occur. A simplistic doll made of chestnuts is found at the site of each killing, a kind of calling-card earning the murderer the name 'The Chestnut Man'. The police investigation in to the politician's daughter was done and dusted months earlier, the murderer caught and imprisoned, but the newest spate of murders raises questions about the earlier investigation and possible links to the latest crimes.

I found the story very, very slow for the most part but the last 20% is proper knicker-gripping (though completely implausible) and goes a long way to making up for the earlier slog. Very long-winded and extremely far-fetched but a decent story that will probably make a pretty good TV series.

This, wonderfully twisted, slice of Nordic Noir, will appeal to all crime fans – especially those who are not put off by upsetting content, or graphic violence. However, this violence is not at the expense of story, or character, and this is a fast moving, exciting read, which combines action with depth.

Rosa Hartung, Minister for Social Affairs, is about to return to work after the loss of her twelve year old daughter, a year earlier. Fighting her grief, she is attempting to get back to normality, for the sake of her son; while her husband hits the bottle. A man was charged with their daughter’s murder, and, even though her body was never found, he was found guilty. However, events are going to give them strange hope. A string of sadistic murders and, at each scene, a chestnut man is left, bearing the fingerprint of their missing daughter…

Naia Thulin is an ambitious single mother, who wants to leave homicide for the National Cyber Crime Centre. Hess is a washed up, Europol ‘liaison officer,’ who has been sent back to Denmark, after getting into trouble. Relieved of duty, and longing to return to his cushy job at the Hague, he seems to have little interest in the investigation, at first. However, those in charge of homicide, are unwilling to re-open the Hartung case – which was seen as a huge success for the department – and, if they are to solve the murders, Thulin and Hess have to work together.

This novel does have some very upsetting themes, so readers need to be aware of that. However, as a crime lover, I have found that the crime novels I have most enjoyed have come under the ‘Noir’ label – whether Nordic Noir or Tartan Noir. This is a fabulous addition to the genre and I would happily read more by this author. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

A confusing,imo,start but this led to a fast paced action filled story,if you like Scandi books you will love this

A very confusing start which although it pans out in the end slightly confuses the main plot. It may be the typography but some of the characterline and placeline breaks are woven together in a single paragraph which makes for double takes and re_reads. A good plot but the story chattered rather than sang. It might make a good and scary movie but as a readers book it was lumpy. I also did not empathise or identify with any of the characters who mostly came from central casting anyway. Was it written in English or is it a translation? Maybe therin lies the nub.

A murderer is on the prowl and his signature is amputation of limbs and little Chestnut Men left at the scene. Can Thulin and Hess, an unlikely partnership find the killer before it’s too late?

The Chestnut Man is a great debut novel from Søren Sveistrup and I will certainly be on the look out for other books from him in future. It’s very much a police procedural but it’s gritty and gory with some truly gruesome crime scenes described in detail – not one for the faint hearted. Naia Thulin and Mark Hess are an interesting partnership and both well rounded characters in their own right – I hope we’ll hear more from them in later books. There are lots of threads to The Chestnut Man and you really do feel like you are taken on a rollercoaster ride all the way through. The investigation follows many paths and also jumps perspective as well but they all converge well and the end twist I certainly did not see coming.

I really enjoyed the way that the book kept up the tension and suspense throughout. It had lots of little cliff hangers and discoveries at the end of each chapter, but unlike a lot of books in a similar genre it didn’t then spell this out to the reader straight away on the next page. It was sometimes several chapters down the line that you discovered what had been found out to further the investigation and this kept your interest held throughout.

Overall The Chestnut Man is a great and gory debut which keeps you hooked throughout. Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin UK – Michael Joseph for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars.
I have to admit something first. I got to about 120 pages into this book and it wasn't really working for me. I don't know why, It just wasn't going well. So I put it to one side for a week or so and read a bunch of other books of differing genres in the mean time before eventually going back to it. Within only a few dozen more pages of reading, it just clicked and I pretty much raced to the end. I am now assuming that it was more of a me thing than a book thing but, as it happened, I need to include it in my review for honesty and transparency.
We start the story at the same time as the Minister for Social Affairs is returning to work after taking some time out after the disappearance (and assumed death) of her daughter. Meanwhile, detectives are called to the scene of a rather brutal murder, A woman is found dead with horrifying injuries and with a missing hand. There's a chestnut man found at the scene. Further investigation links the scene to the missing daughter. Could she still be alive and, if so, what about the man who is in prison serving sentence for her death?
It's an interesting plot played out by well crafted characters that were all pretty easy to distinguish and connect to. It's non-linear in nature but easy to follow with short punchy chapters. There are all the elements you'd expect in a book of this genre. Direction, misdirection, secrets, lies & duplicitous behaviour, all served up with more than a fair few red herrings on the side. I did have to suspend belief a couple of times but all for the good of the story and its progression so I was more than willing to take one for the team. I also guessed it early but that's also probably more to do with the quantity of this genre books that I read rather than anything the author did wrong.
The murders depicted in the story are a bit on the nasty side so it isn't for the faint hearted but, when you do eventually learn who and why then the level of violence is more than justified and in keeping with the backstory but does give the book quite a dark tone throughout.
Apparently this is written by the same person responsible for the hit TV show The Killing. I've not watched that but I think on the back of this, I may well give it a try.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Oh boy what a great debut novel this is. Scandi Noir has added yet another great author to its wonderful selection that's fit to grace any book shelf. From the mind behind the TV programme The Fallen comes a brilliantly written crime novel.
Taking a chilling killer whose childhood nurtured them into the horror they are today. Add a plot twist that leaves you breathless, a detective that has the ability to join the dots in the most random ways and voila you have the bones for a great novel. Flesh it out with tightly written script that maximises the use of the written word.
A story that while it uses lots of description and to some might seem too wordy gives you a sense of a satisfied read.
Someone is killing and leaving clues behind in the form of a figure made of chestnuts. What or who connects the victims that's the questions that a young detective Naia Thulin and a burned out investigator Mark Hess must answer as the body count rises. How does it all connect to the case of a missing girl, the daughter of the politician Rosa Hartung. Someone was jailed for her murder so the case was closed but with the new evidence mounting up did someone get it wrong. As Hess and Thulin follow various strands the case becomes more and more twisted and it seems that not all will end well there is one strand that seemingly leads nowhere. Its this strand that Hess refuses to let go of when all around him seem satisfied with how the case is unfolding.
If you want to know who, what and why then you need to buy this book. You will not be disappointed, you will have also discovered a great new author.
As always these are my opinions and I thank NetGalley for letting me read it.

I was excited to read the first novel of Soren Sveistrup, just like a lot of other people, because of his fantastic Scandi Noir series "The Killing". I'll say straight out that the book does not in any way disappoint and is more of the same brilliant stuff.

Thulin is the obligatory hard-nosed, intelligent and fiercely independent female detective. She gets a new partner when Hess messes up at his long-time post at Europol and is shipped back to Copenhagen until he can get his boss to forgive him. Thulin is understandably frustrated - Hess is a complete mess and cares more about getting back to Europol than he does about the case they are working on. A woman is found beaten and murdered in a playground, and one of her hands has been cut off.

Rosa Hartung is a government minister. She and her family are still recovering from her daughter's disappearance a year ago. Her killer has been brought to justice, but her body was never found. It's been difficult for them to accept she's really gone. But Rosa is finally starting to get on with her life, and she has gone back to work amidst the expected media circus, and is dealing with things well. That is, until her daughter's fingerprint is found at the crime scene.

I really enjoyed this book. Thulin and Hess are both great characters, even if Thulin is one you will recognise from many Scandinavian crime shows and books. To begin with I expected her to be the main focus of the story, but actually it turned out to be Hess who was the star. His character and ideas develop throughout the book and this is what made it stand out for me.

The plot is completely gripping, it's a tension builder throughout and I couldn't put it down. It's quite long and complex but this didn't stop the constant creeping feeling that time to find the killer is running out. There seem to be no leads, but the story still develops in a realistic way based on small clues and investigative work. It's a really good procedural and crime crossover. There was nothing I found to be stretched, I liked the ending and I was happy with the way things played out, so it wasn't disappointing as things sometimes are at their finale.

I really enjoyed this book. I'd recommend to anyone who loves Scandi Noir, police dramas, thrillers or serial killer romps - this is all of the above. I hope the author writes more soon, I'll be on the lookout. And I wouldn't be surprised to see this as a TV series sometime in the near future.

An interesting one this. I loved the series The Killing, which is by the same author and felt this novel read very much like a screenplay. So and so did this, so and so did that. I just couldn't shake that feeling!

Anyway, in typical style this is a good thrilling ride, twists and turns abound at quite a pace. The Chestnut Man gave me a couple of nightmares, always a good sign! A cracking read and not one you'll figure out before the conclusion. Highly recommended.

The cover of this shows a little man made of chestnuts and sticks and I found it to looked creepy before I even knew what the book was about.

This is set in Copenhagen and Thulin and Ness are working together on a case after the body of a woman is found, murdered and one of her hands has been amputated. A small chestnut man is found at the scene and so the investigation begins.....is there a link to the Rosa Hartung case, her daughter had gone missing months earlier, her body was never found, but her fingerprint is on the chestnut man ! Is a serial killer at work?

What follows is an intense, detailed investigation with insights in to both Hess and Thulin’s lives and backgrounds which builds believable, likeable characters with good and bad in their pasts.

The story is gruesome and has truly creepy moments, it’s also heartbreaking and nervewrackingly tense. I loved the satisfying ending and the final summing up of the story, tying up all the loose ends. I will never be able to look at a chestnut in the same way again. If you like your thrillers dark, then this is a must read.

I would like to thank the Author/the Publishers/NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review

This is the kind of book that really stays with you. Chock full of brilliant twists and turns I didn't see coming.

A thrilling plotting, written in a twisted and gripping style. Perfect for those who love Scandi-noir. Highly recommended.