THE CHESTNUT MAN
SOREN SVEISTRUP
*****
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.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chestnut-Man-S%C3%B8ren-Sveistrup-ebook/dp/B07D9Y4GGF