Review: The Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

SYNOPSIS:

THE DEUBUT NOVEL FROM THE CREATOR AND WRITER OF HIT TV SHOW THE KILLLING.

As the leaves fall, he’s coming for you…

One October morning in a quiet suburb, the police make a terrible discovery.

A young woman is found brutally murdered with one of her hands missing.

Above her hangs a small doll made of chestnuts.

Examining the doll, Forensics are shocked to find a fingerprint belonging to a young girl, kidnapped and murdered a year ago.

Can a new killer be the key to an old crime?

And will his spree be over when winter arrives – or is he just getting started?

MY REVIEW: 

A chilling, grisly, haunting book that’s brimming with tension, The Chestnut Man is the perfect autumn read. From the opening pages there’s a malevolent atmosphere, like evil is lurking in the shadows just waiting to strike. 

A young mother is found in the children’s playground behind her garden. She’s been savagely tortured, mutilated and murdered while her son slept inside unaware of the horror. It’s like nothing the officers investigating have ever seen before. And there, hanging on a beam above the playhouse, is a chestnut doll that contains a clue with links to the kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old girl last year that was thought to be solved. 

When another young mother is killed in a similar way, the same chestnut doll at the scene, it becomes clear they are in pursuit of a sadistic killer who’s only just getting started. Now, the urgent chase is on to identify and stop him before more lives are taken – and to discover his connection to the year old murder case.

Not for the faint hearted, this was a warped, gruesome, eerie and riveting thriller. Complex and layered, the writing is sharp and atmospheric with nail-biting tension throughout. I found it impossible to predict and loved how the author slowly strung the pieces together to create the startling final picture. Its starts strong, with the grisly back-to-back murders that had my heart pounding, and I breathed a sigh of relief when there was a pause in them for a while. It felt a little slow in the middle and I did begin to wonder if focusing on so many different characters was a mistake, but he soon pulled it back together and had me on the edge of my seat.

The Chestnut Man is an outstanding debut and I can’t wait to see what the author writes next. 

Out now.