Book Review: The Tenant by Katrine Engberg (Korner and Werner #1)

My Rating: 

3.5⭐

Audiobook:4/5

Plot:3/5

A young woman, Julie Stender, is brutally murdered in her apartment in downtown Copenhagen with her face mutilated and all signs pointing to the fact that she probably knew her murderer. Police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In the course of their investigation, they interview Julie’s landlady Esther de Laurenti, who is in the middle of is writing a novel with the main character based on Julie, who seems to have shared some significant details of her life with Esther. What is shocking is the fact that the details of Julie’s murder are uncannily similar to events described in Esther’s manuscript- a manuscript shared with only a few others in a private writers’ group. With Esther ruled out as a suspect, it is up to the detectives to take a deep dive into Julie’s life – her dysfunctional family, her roommate and current friends, and her complicated love life, past and present, complete with a mysterious boyfriend whose identity is yet unknown as well as the members in Esther’s writing group to find any possible connections. Subsequently, when another person close to both Esther and Julie is murdered, Esther begins to fear for her own life, Korner and Werner must race to find the murderer before someone else turns up dead.

To be fair, even though The Tenant by Katrine Engberg is not exactly the gritty Nordic noir I expected it to be, it is an interesting procedural crime thriller with two lead detectives out to solve a gruesome murder. This is a slow-paced novel that does require a bit of patience. I did enjoy the twists and red herrings and was not able to predict the identity of the perpetrator which was a plus for me. I am a fan of police procedurals in general and enjoyed the dynamic between the lead detectives who work well together with their fair share of good-natured bickering in-between. We don’t get to know much about Anette Werner outside her professional life unlike Jeppe Korner and his struggle with prescription pain medication and his navigating his newly divorced single status being described with so much detail (maybe a bit too much?). I felt that the details of his personal life were of no consequence to the plot and found my interest wavering in those segments.

I had to alternate between reading and listening to the audio on account of my watery eyes and flu-addled brain being unable to focus on reading for too long. The audio narration by Graeme Malcolm was quite engaging. I feel the audio experience was more satisfying than reading the book.

Overall, I was drawn to the premise of this novel and though the execution wasn’t quite as impressive, I'm not ready to give up on the series altogether and fully intend to read the remaining books.