I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did in the end. The best aspects are the set-up, a down-on-his luck detective heading up a department in the basement of Danish police HQ with a tiny budget and a Syrian refugee assistant, who are tasked wth solving a stack of impossible unsolved mysteries. Some of it didn’t ring very true and the nasty things done to the female victim were, well, nasty. The solution to the mystery was pretty guessable early on but it’s a reasonable start to a series with promising side characters. Just didn’t break as much new ground as I’d hoped.
NB I listened to this as an audiobook, its new, not very memorable, title is “Mercy”.
No. 41 of 100 books I intend to read and review in 2019.
* * *
Patrick Sherriff publishes a monthly newsletter highlighting good fiction about Japan and featuring an original painting or sketch. He lives in Abiko, Japan, with his wife and two daughters.
Patrick Sherriff 