Paul's Reviews > The Preacher

A Great New Danish Crime Writing Duo

Welcome to The Preacher by Sander Jakobsen male female writing partnerships who in Denmark have achieved critical and more importantly commercial success. With The Preacher they are going to repeat that success over here because their writing is fluid, clear and stunning. Think of The Killing and its dark moody atmosphere and you have it here in spades, the only difference we are not in Copenhagen but out in East Jutland.

The book which is broken in to three parts in which you can see are the natural breaks in the story as you head towards the conclusion. We open with the vicar sat outside the prison awaiting the release of someone who he wants to talk to and find out why his wife had to die – he does not get the answer. The book opens with the murder of Karen Christensen the wife of the local vicar of Roslinge and the introduction of Detective Thea Krogh who is sent to investigate the murder. As the murder investigation goes on it gets bogged down with the no reason for the murder and who the murderer may be. Then there is another murder in a neighbouring town which seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with the Christensen murder, or is there a connection?

We are led on a wonderful search for clues up countryside lanes and the wonderful summer houses of Denmark. Dashing from town to town chasing down those clues looking for suspects and looking for links between two possibly three murdered women, only the killer knows for sure. We do not know who the killer maybe or the reasons until late in the book and then we still have to question whether we know the full story. Which leaves the book on an interesting cliff hanger for the follow up book and if it takes up where this left off they we will be on a winner.

The characters in this book are complicated like we all are in life and we see them looking for an explanation of what has happened as we all would. Whether they get it is a different matter and one you need to read for yourself. All aspects of a rural village life are examined and how everybody knows each other’s business and gossip rules.

This really is a fantastic, brooding dark Scandi crime novel from this new writing duo and long may they continue with their efforts. I loved the characters and the atmosphere that has been created in this novel and it is easy to picture in your mind as you read. This is one of the best crime debut novels that I have read!