My Name is Jensen

This was a compelling and thoroughly enjoyable read from start to finish with a great storyline, interesting cast of characters and all capped off by skilful writing. It's well worth your time if you appreciate great storytellers.

I’ve just finished reading My Name is Jensen by Heidi Amsinck and think (hope) Jensen could be the new book character I follow for the next decade.

Although I do read stand alone books I’ve a tendency to read books where it is the same main character; Harry Bosch, Evan Smoak (Orphan X), Myron Bolitar & Win, Vianne Rocher, Eddie Flynn, etc. and it now looks like Jensen may be the next character I follow (assuming Heidi Amsinck writes more Jensen books).

The thing about My name is Jensen is it’s not just Jensen I want to know more about, there are a number of great characters who I’m dying to find out more about, and a great storyline to go with those characters too.

I am finding myself increasingly drawn to Scandi noir and so when offered the opportunity to read this new title from Heidi Amsinck I was more than happy. I'll be honest, despite knowing a few people who hail from Denmark, it's not a country I know a lot about or one I've read a lot of literature from so I welcomed the opportunity to try something a little new. What I found with My Name is Jensen is a slow burning novel which piqued my interest from the start and maintained its mystery and misdirection right to the end.

This is the story of journalist, Jensen, who discovers the body of a young man whilst on her daily ride into work. Although as a journalist you'd expect her interest to be triggered by the murder, she is reluctant to report on the story itself, her focus falling more on the victim and the whys and wherefores of how he came to be living, and dying, on the streets in the midst of a snowstorm. The more she learns, the less it all makes sense and the more Jensen, and by default, me as reader, gets drawn into the story. And this is no straightforward story, the author turning the tables on what you might first believe is happening, certainly leaving a very perplexing trail of bodies across the city to keep the local police well and truly baffled.

I won't lie, Jensen is not an easy character to get to know, or like. She's very complex, spiky almost and it took time to settle into my stride reading the book. She has all the determination and stubbornness of a great protagonist, and her instincts are largely proven to be spot on, but she is quite cool, almost aloof, and not someone it is easy to warm to. And yet she seems most popular amongst the male population, perhaps because she is seen as the slightly (or often completely) unattainable woman in their lives. There is a strong chemistry between Jensen and Detective Henrik who is investigating the murders, but nothing in their relationship is straightforward and it adds a kind of conflict to a story which is already keeping readers on edge.

There is a certain amount of tension which is maintained throughout the novel, a sense of threat which bubbles along under the surface of the main story. We are drip fed a number of suspects, all of whom have reason to dislike at least one of the victims, but all of whom seem to have unshakeable alibis. I had guessed part way through the story as to where this was likely to lead, a suspicion which was proven true by the end but I was still intrigued by the story, more so from around the halfway point when we knew a lot more about the first victim and the pool of suspects. A bit like Jensen, the more i read, the more I wanted to know about the first victim, Thomas, knowing that his story, as tragic as it appeared, was likely the key to everything. And the author has done a great job of making him appear a very sympathetic victim, making the reader invested in him, no matter what we learn about him along the way.

From a character perspective, the author has done a great job in surrounding the perhaps less lovable Jensen with people who made me smile. Aziz, although the strong silent type himself, was someone I took to pretty quickly and, in spite of their unhealthy obsession with Jensen, Henrik and Esben kept me invested in their parts of the story. Gustav, as an initial thorn in Jensen's side eventually comes into his own in the way only the youth of today can (how old do I sound?). And I just wish I had a coffee making Liron in my life ...

This is a very traditional feeling thriller with a real mystery at its heart. There is a subplot which never gets resolved and leaves the impression that there is still more to come from Jensen. And I'm glad about that. She may not be the warmest hero in modern fiction, but Jensen has a grit which makes her intriguing and unpredictable to go on a journey, with and lord knows what she'll lead us all into next.

Thanks to Muswell Press and Netgalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for a review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish. The body of a homeless man by journalist Jensen. Convinced that the police investigation has got it wrong Jensen can't help but get involved and takes matters in to her own hands.

Well worth a read and I'll definitely look out for more books by Heidi Amsinck in the future.

One of my favourite books of the year.
Set in Copenhagen, Jensen is a journalist. Recently returned from London she is back at Dagbladet as special reporter however she is struggling to write anything for the paper.
She finds a young man dead in the snow, stabbed to death which seems to awaken her spirit/ interest in life and work again.
So begins her quest to find out who the young man was and why he died. This inevitably leads her into contact with her ex married lover - Henrik Jungersen, the detective investigating his murder and that of a previous man found stabbed.
I loved the style of writing, the relationships between the main protagonists, the twists and turns and the descriptions of Copenhagen and Denmark .More murders follow and Jensen and Henrik, in their love/hate relationship try to uncover the truth and the murderer.
4.5 Stars

Jensen stumbled across a homeless guy's corpse one day and her already confusing life just became a lot more confusing. She had to contact and confront the one relationship she tried her best to avoid ever since she returned from London to Denmark, with the policeman, Helnik.

Jensen is a good reporter, but her reporting skills are in the backseat in this novel, and she is at a point in her life where her curiosity and the knack of finding the truth has overtaken her need to tell the world the story. So she is as persuasive as a character could get, which makes her a good character.

The one deterring factor in this book was infidelity for me since I am anything but a fan of it, but my relation with the book was pretty much like Jensen's relation with Helnik, I couldn't part with it for long intervals.

All the characters were intriguing, Liron, Gustav and Aziz, being my favorite, everyone of them lend something to the story. The mystery was good, more like hiding in the plain site that I liked about it. And the fact that it ended on an open note, signifies another book can be there which I'd love to read.

If you're into Nordic Noir, or just mysteries with flawed characters based in an almost real premise, then you should go for this.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher to provide me an ARC in return of an honest review.

Thank you for sharing this book with me, and for introducing me to Heidi Amsinck. I loved this book, detailed characters, cynical humour, good plot with lots of twists, both for Jensen and the murders. I found the style similar to that of Simone Buchholz, who I also enjoy. Highly recommended.

My Name is Jensen is a compelling slow-burning Scandinavian noir and the first instalment in a new crime thriller series featuring Viggo Jensen. Meet Jensen, a thirty-something female journalist who has recently returned to her native Copenhagen after her job working as a foreign correspondent in London for the last 15 years for newspaper Dagbladet has been cut, although she hasn't been let go from the company altogether due to editor Margrethe Skov trusting her eye for a good story. After the years spent in England, though, she is feeling a little like a fish out of water now that she is back in her hometown and her enthusiasm for writing seems to have waned. Whilst cycling through a snowy Copenhagen on her ride to work bright and early on a frigid Tuesday morning, she stumbles across the body of a young street beggar and homeless man near Magstræde with the word Guilty written on a cardboard sign on his chest. His head is turned towards the sky and his eye sockets filled with snow. Perhaps in his mid-twenties, but definitely younger than Jensen, it's clear he has been stabbed multiple times in the stomach.

She decides to call DI Henrik Jungerson, her married ex-lover who she has been avoiding since she got home, to report the body, and although the deaths of the homeless generally make newspaper headlines in the capital city of the country described as the happiest in the world, Jensen has no desire to report on or sensationalise it much to the chagrin of Margrethe. That said, she is interested in finding out who the young man was, what his story was, why he was living on the streets and why he was murdered in such a brutal and violent manner. Police begin to wonder, during their investigation, whether a killer is targeting homeless individuals as they connect it to another murder two weeks prior. As Jensen becomes almost obsessed with covertly investigating the case, the more she discovers the less sense it all makes to her. Then when a third murder occurs, the police realise they really do have a serial killer in their midst. This is a gripping and compulsively readable police procedural crime thriller set in the heart of Scandinavia, and I was almost instantaneously pulled into the story.

It is a beautifully constructed, propulsive read, rich with character, loaded with atmosphere and utterly entertaining. An absorbing start to what promises to be a stellar new crime series. With a complex plot ripe with clever twists, dizzying misdirection and slow-burning suspense, there is a captivating mystery at its heart and in many ways, protagonist Jensen is a fascinating, idiosyncratic yet enigmatic character who I can't wait to learn more about. Gritty, authentically portrayed noir laden with unexpected turns and the relationship and dynamic between her and Hendrik appears fraught with tension. I loved Jensen's real and raw nature, and although she comes off as a spiky cornucopia of contradictions very much inhabiting a male-dominated work sphere, many of the others characters are warm and more straightforwardly likeable. An exciting and engrossing novel that encompasses some important topical themes - mental health, drug abuse, homelessness and capitalism-induced poverty - and juggles several possible suspects as well as perfectly depicting time and place. Highly recommended.

This story of a young boy’s murder on the snowy streets of Copenhagen is compelling and well written. I loved the character of the flawed heroine Jensen and her sidekick Gustav and the book left me wanting to know more about both Gustav’s and her back history. Unusually in a detective story, the author paid as much attention to her characters as to the plot and the reader ends up really caring about the outcome and what happens next to them. The novel is set up perfectly for a sequel and I, for one, can’t wait.

My Name is Jensen is the debut thriller from Heidi Amsinck ,and it's very impressive for a first book.

Jensen is a world-weary reporter struggling to reclaim her former star status at Copenhagen newspaper Dagbladet after returning to Denmark from a stint as their correspondent in London. On her way to work one morning she comes across the body of what appears to a homeless man and calls the police.
More specifically she calls D.I. Henrik Jungersen , just one of the men she has a somewhat complicated relationship with. From there the hunt for what appears to be a serial killer targeting the homeless begins......but things become a whole lot more complex than that.

It took me a little while to warm to Jensen, she's hardly a sympathetic personality ,but as the book goes on a very complex and interesting,if not always likeable,character emerges. She's a lady with a history,mostly of attracting the wrong kind of male attention, she's stubborn and deeply annoying while somehow having a stream of male admirers who hold her in deep affection.

This is a great read that ,once it began to grip me,I thoroughly enjoyed. there are some great characters and while it initially appears to be a "run of the mill" Scandi-noir thriller there is a lot more to the story than first meets the eye.
There's a second story-line running through the tale and things are set up for another book .Perhaps a bit optimistic for a new author but in this case I can see this being the first of several "Jensen" books.

A great read that is entertaining,quite dark and introduces plenty of fascinating characters for what I'm sure will turn out to be a very popular series.

As a fan dark Scandi dramas on the tv I loved this book which has all the elements of this genre .without having to read the subtitles ! The freezing cold snowy landscape adds to the drama and character of the book which gains a lot from its setting in Copenhagen and the surrounding countryside
The characters are as unforgiving and brooding as the genre encourages think Girl with the dragon tattoo meets The Bridge .The relationship between the main female journalist character and the policeman is complicated and I can see this developing on subsequent books.I enjoyed the minor characters more the coffee seller for example was beautifully described and believable as was the body guard
I suppose my only criticism would be that we have seen all these main characters before in tv dramas and because of this it might be said that the book is a little predictable ,having said that I did find it an enjoyable fast paced exciting read
I read an early copy on NetGalley Uk