THE TENANT

4 stars out of 5

This turned out to be an interesting book for

several reasons - not the least of which that it's set in Denmark, written by a popular Danish author and is the first of her work, I believe, to be translated for the U.S. market. It's also the first in a detective series, so I'll assume that if it does well here in the states, we'll have the opportunity to read more.

And that's fine by me. Up front, though, I'll say I never totally warmed up to either of the main characters - police investigator Jeppe Korner and his partner, Anette Werner - but then the two of them never quite seem to warm up to each other, either, so I don't feel too bad. They're very different personalities with very different backgrounds (Jeppe is recently and unhappily divorced while Anette's marriage seems on solid footing, for instance). But they at least tolerate one another professionally, and that's what's most important as the case takes center stage.

In an apartment building owned by a retired university professor turned fiction writer, an elderly tenant stumbles (literally) into the apartment occupied by two relatively young girls. One is gone and the other is home - but quite dead. She's been brutally murdered, and there's blood everywhere but no other clues. Jeppe and Anette must start from scratch, first interviewing the dead girl's roommate and her boyfriend, the building owner and her special, much younger male friend who is, shall I say, a bit of a weirdo.

The case grows even more complex as connections to other mostly nasty friends and relatives emerge and some of the dead girl's secrets are revealed. Learning that the novel the building owner is writing is more than loosely based on the life of the dead girl leads to the strong suspicion that life is imitating art (or that the elderly writer may even be the killer). Throw in a couple of other murders, and the plot, as they say, begins to thicken. In the midst of all this, love-starved Jeppe meets a tantalizing woman who rocks his world (an affair that, to my mind,  seemed totally out of place and added nothing to the plot, though perhaps it's a scene that will be revisited in a future installment).

The pace picks up complete with a twist or two as the ending nears, the killer is identified and all becomes as right with the world as is possible under the circumstances. In all, it's a solid start to a new series I think will get even better - so yes, I'm looking forward to proving myself right. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for offering me an advance copy of this one.

The Tenant by Katrine Engberg (Gallery/Scout Press, January 2020); 368 pp.