The Tenant by Katrine Engberg
Expected Publication Date: January 14th, 2020 by Simon & Schuster Canada // Gallery/Scout Press
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller
Format: e-ARC
Source: NetGalley

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Summary (from NetGalley): When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist—and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows both more urgent and more dangerous.

But Esther’s role in this twisted scenario is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprit—or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance? Anette and Jeppe must dig more deeply into the two women’s pasts to discover the identity of the brutal puppet-master pulling the strings in this electrifying literary thriller.

Review: I really enjoyed this one. It starts with the brutally murdered body of a 21 year old woman named Julie being found by another tenant Gregers. The other tenant and owner of the complex Esther is then questioned by the two detectives that take on the case Jeppe and Anette. From there little foreshadowing nuggets and side characters are dispersed throughout the investigation and the snippets we get of each of the characters that leaves the reader trying to figure out whodunnit.

The dynamic between Christian (Julie’s father) and her I think could have been expanded upon a bit because his actions and accusations throughout seemed muddled. As well as a bit more backstory with Kingo and his involvement in all this as I found it a little convenient and farfetched at times.

The pacing was a little slow in the beginning and getting used to the Danish locations/police procedures but it didn’t waver my motivation to continue on to try and piece together everything. From the beginning to about 70% of the novel my pick on who the killer was and their motives behind it kept switching as I tried to piece together clues and symbolism that was mentioned earlier. I do wish the reveal of the culprit was drawn out more and took place closer to the end to keep that intense page-turner excitement. Regardless, I devoured this in just under twenty four hours. I needed to know how it all tied together!

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review*

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