Sub: Nordic

★★★★

Ballantine Books | 2016

Filed Under: RUN BITCH RUN

Holy Nordic crime fiction, Batman!

OKAY, please completely ignore that I started this book review with a holy batman exclamation. I am high and it was playing on a loop in my head so I had to say it.

If you’re a fan of the aforementioned genre, you will absolutely love this novel, I promise. Nordic crime fiction is always hit or miss for me, but this one by Camilla Grebe is a hit.

Let’s start our bookworm asses at the beginning, shall we?

An unidentified, decapitated woman is found in the bed of a moderately famous, very wealthy CEO. And he, Jesper Orre, has seemingly disappeared. He’s not a fucking magician, so what the fuck?

DI Peter Lindgren is the lead detective on the case. He’s a despondent, sullen character. He has an ex-wife who hates him and a troubled teenage son whose issues could probably be traced back to his ongoing search for a connection with his father. Only time and again, he finds that Peter has been, and always will be, more interested in his job than his family. It’s a tale as old as crime fiction itself.

You can take the detective off the job, but you can’t take the job off the detective…? That doesn’t make sense. Never mind.

Also lending their insight to the narrative is Hanne. She’s a former criminal profiler who had to leave her career behind after the effects of her early-onset dementia left her unable to do her job to the best of her ability. She’s stuck in a loveless marriage with a controlling man, and can’t even trust her own mind. So, when she’s asked to consult on the case of the headless woman, she says fuck it and finds her strength to make the leap into independence, despite her illness.

Yas, QUEEN!

I love a badass, independent woman. Hanne keeps her badass-ittude very classy and understated. And I totally aspire to that. But for now, I’m a messy swamp demon made of contradictions. But still…I’m aspiring.

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