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Synopsis -
A psychopath is terrorizing Copenhagen.
His calling card is a “chestnut man”—a handmade doll made of matchsticks and two chestnuts—which he leaves at each bloody crime scene.
Examining the dolls, forensics makes a shocking discovery—a fingerprint belonging to a young girl, a government minister’s daughter who had been
kidnapped and murdered a year ago.
A tragic coincidence—or something more twisted?
To save innocent lives, a pair of detectives must put aside their differences to piece together the Chestnut Man’s gruesome clues.
Because it’s clear that the madman is on a mission that is far from over.
And no one is safe.
Review -
While The Chestnut Man does deliver a few tropes that are familiar in thriller stories, such as an ill-matched detective duo, the twists and turns that come over the course of this book make it easy to overlook the common thriller threads.
It is those wild twists that help keep this story intriguing, and they all seemed to come at a time when I found that things were just beginning to drag a little.
The setting is as bleak as the storyline and adds to the chilling effect that the author is trying to deliver. I will say that the writing style felt a little disjointed in the early going, but that is probably down to the fact that the book was translated from Danish. As you get deeper, though, you begin to forget all of that as you get sucked in.
This is a book that will keep you guessing who the killer is all the way to the end, which is really all you can ask for from a good thriller.
4 stars out of 5