I really enjoyed this story, it’s the kind of gritty crime thriller that I enjoy and I was hooked after the first few chapters.
I loved the concept of a killer leaving behind the chestnut men at each scene as his calling card.

I really liked the two main characters and took to them both straight away.
The story is harrowing at times, but is fast paced and full of twists and turns and it kept me guessing right until the killer was revealed, and I had no idea who it would be, which I love.

The only criticism I have is the story jumped from one place to another very quickly and it’s wasn’t always clear that you’re on to a different bit straight away. This did settle the further I got into the story. But all in all a fab read and I look forward to more from Soren Sveistrup.

I would like to thank Soren Sveistrup, Penguin UK - Michael Joseph, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Totally gripped me. An absolute page turned and if it isn't adapted for tv incredibly soon I will be hugely surprised!!

Enjoyable read. A government minister returns to work a year after her daughter goes missing. But then new murders occur and her daughter's fingerprint is found on mini dolls made out of chestnuts. Two mismatched detectives need to close out the case in the face of political pressure from the police leadership. Good read, plot that keeps moving and with some pleasing twists and turns. An author worth keeping an eye on.

This book was extremely intricate and was the type of thriller that you had to bundle down with and just swamp yourself in. It's a long one at close to 500 pages but the story is really addicting, and it's easy to turn the pages at a lightning speed as you race to find out what happened and who is the cause of it all.

This is a book that I would advise people read with doors closed, no chance of creepy shadows and loud noises, and possibly a dog at your side to guard you because the action scenes are quite intense and it's easy to start feeling a bit uneasy and paranoid - even while safe at home! The atmosphere delivered is perfection.

I think the story played out really nicely, and I definitely didn't guess the killer until quite late along when it was pretty much delivered to be on a plate by the author. The translation of the story from Danish into English also didn't serve up any problems and seems to have been done well.

There were mentions of diverse, ethnic communities in the book at times and there were a couple of times the way characters would talk about others of a different race and/or gender would make me slightly uncomfortable. The word "Paki" was used a good bit by characters but I think in a way that was suppose to make the reader flinch a bit and feel uncomfortable, and there was some crude sexism from certain characters as well.

Without doubt the best book ive read fir some tine!
500 + pages of breakneck speed fantastic story telling! Absolutely relentless action and twists along the way...breathtaking!

I really enjoyed reading this book. A great one for all lovers of Scandi-noir crime drama and one that I think will draw the attention of programme makers.
It has everything drama, political intrigue, psychologically, l damaged characters, dysfunctional police officers, its all there wrapped up in a haunting, seriously dark thriller.
It kept me guessing with unexpected twists and in the end: could I have guessed who-done it? Well perhaps not until a very long way through the book..
A great read for all lovers of fictional crime dram, I loved it! Bring on a sequel!

Packing your Christmas turkey with chestnut stuffing will never be the same again after reading the Chestnut Man by Søren Sveistrup. This Nordic noir is the espresso of black coffee in so far as steam is forced through the ground coffee beans, so too is radical detective work forced through a closed case to help solve some more recent, gruesome murders. I particularly liked Hess, dropped from Europol and washed up in the Major Crimes Division, which sounds a lot grander than it actually is. Naia Thulin who has spent her nine months there trying to break out of this police museum is paired up with Mark Hess (somewhere on the Asperger scale) and initially it’s not a marriage made in heaven. However, things step up a pace when a series of murders are committed, seemingly unrelated, except for the amputations and a Chestnut Man left at every crime scene.

The plot is very creative but has a macabre logic to it, which is revealed towards the end. I did have a few technical issues with parts of it. The use of a circular saw and the screams of the amputee in some of the locations (which were peaceful places) would have reached the ears of the pursuers, helping to direct the search. The SMS protocol (as far as I’m aware) does not allow for anonymous messages. The ability to outrun the petrol accelerant in the basement fire is dubious but the prisoners would have had the air sucked from their lungs as the fuel ignited so they would have perished where they were.

If this book was a translation from Danish then the translator has done an excellent job. Never once was it clunky like some translations can be.

This was difficult to read at times as there was quite a lot of disturbing scenes. That said though it was a very good read with the characters being very likeable.

Without giving away the story I can say without doubt that The Chestnut Man will be in my dreams/nightmares for awhile to come

One blustery October morning in a quiet Copenhagen 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.

Ambitious young detective Naia Thulin is assigned the case. Her partner, Mark Hess, is a burned-out investigator who's just been kicked out of Europol. They soon discover a mysterious piece of evidence on the chestnut man - evidence connecting it to a girl who went missing a year earlier and is presumed dead; the daughter of politician Rosa Hartung. But the man who confessed to her murder is already behind bars and the case long since closed.

Soon afterwards, a second woman is found murdered, along with another chestnut man. Thulin and Hess suspect that there's a connection between the Hartung case and the murdered women. But what is it?

Thulin and Hess are racing against the clock, because it's clear that the killer is on a mission that is far from over . .

THIS IS AMAZING!

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy. I loved this book - full of twists and complex characters who you can't quite work out. I love a good thriller and this is way up there with the best I have read. It kept me turning the page; kept me guessing and genuinely surprised me with the unravelling story. A must-read for thriller fans.

A young woman's body is found with a hand missing and a chestnut man beside her. Naia Thulin is on the case with Hess from Europol and it soon becomes clear this case is more complicated than they thought. Is it linked to the disappearance of a young girl and what is the significance of the chestnut man.

This is a long story and I must admit it took me some time to get into it. Once I got into it, it was good. The plot takes time to develop but there are many clever twists along the way that make it worth the slog. The ending was so good and tied everything off yet left that slight possibility of a sequel. Theres lots going on so but it all fits together and took me time to figure out who the killer was.

Although Hess is a bit of a mess at the start I grew to like him pretty quickly. It took a bit longer with Thulin but they really worked well together.

For a debut novel, this was a brilliant read. The pronunciations of places and people is guesswork but that aside the story line was great. Would thoroughly recommend this book to others.

My Review: Now I absolutely LOVED The Killing when I watched it on TV and when I was asked if I wanted to read Søren Sveistrup debut thriller I obviously JUMPED at the chance.

I must admit to starting this book with slight trepidation as I’d heard that you need to concentrate when reading it, mainly due to the Danish names being a Scandi Crime Thriller and quite a bit of jumping back and forth, so I made sure my day was clear and sat down ready to read with no outside interruptions. This, however, was completely unnecessary as I was utterly gripped and immersed into the story and the characters within the first few chapters.

The Chestnut Man is a really fast paced serial killer thriller with some absolutely GRUESOME murders, two fascinating lead detectives and an unknown psychopath who is killing women and leaving a Chestnut Man near their dismembered bodies.

The background between the two main detectives, Thulin, a single mother working in the Major Crimes Division but desperate to move to Cyber Crime and Hess, a disgraced ex-Europol detective sent to Copenhagen is brilliant. Both detectives seem to be uninterested in this case for their own personal reasons and it is so interesting as a reader to follow and watch how their attitudes and relationship changes throughout the story.

It’s dark, disturbing and totalling gripping. Descriptive, atmospheric and utterly compelling. If you enjoy intelligent thrillers full of twists and turns, lots of violence, brilliant characters and action packed then I would definitely recommend The Chestnut Man.

Written by the creator of the fantastic series The Killing (which I LOVED), this is proper Scandi-crime-drama - dark, twisted, gritty and snow-laden.

Rosa Hartung is the Minister for Social Affairs who is just returning to work following the disappearance of her 12 year old daughter a year earlier.

At the same time, a young mother is brutally murdered in her home and one clue left behind - a child's chestnut man - points back to a link with Hartung's daughter. Could she still be alive?

This book deals with some rather disturbing themes, and isn't afraid to get gory - which is why I loved it! A fantastic book that twists and turns and doesn't let up, leaving you guessing until the end.

A great cast of characters well-written and real. Can't wait for the next one!

From the start of this (long) book, we are in familiar Scandi noir territory. The woman detective who seems to have issues with men, particularly her boss. The rather mysterious incomer from Interpol. Plenty of blood and gore. Having said that - those are the reasons we aficianados of Scandi noir love it!

Sveistrup’s story jumps around a little to start with and it took me a few chapters to get into it. I wasn’t surprised to learn that the author’s best-known as a screenwriter - much of the prose is terse and filmic, with complex interwoven story-lines.
However, the short, sharp chapters and switching perspectives kept me turning the pages.
The main characters are the duo of Hess (on secondment from Interpol) and Thulin. They make an unusual and credible pairing: the young and ambitious Thulin, hoping to make her getaway from the MCD (Major Crimes Division) to join the cyber crime unit, and Hess, the more predictable and familiar frayed at the edges older detective.
The Chestnut Man deserves a creditable place in the pantheon of Scandinavian crime fiction, with its multi-layered storylines and atmospheric settings. It features a killer who is cold and calculating, and the more I read, the more I questioned the killer’s motives. Why is he/she targeting the families in the way he/she does?
One fairly minor niggle, but something that irritates me: the version I read in Netgalley needed a more thorough edit. Most of the story is told in the present tense, but from time to time there’s a random switch to past tense for a sentence or two, for no stylistic or narrative purpose. That jars!

I don't know if it is the translation or the original writing, but I just could not get used to the writing style. It forced me on a few occasions to reread certain sections, as I was struggling to make sense of it. In the end it was a good story albeit very gruesome with a few twists and turns. I did come close to giving up due to its disjointed nature, but glad I stuck it out to the end. In summary it came nowhere near my expectations for the author of the "Killing" series.

Thank You to NetGalley, Søren Sveistrup and Penguin UK - Michael Joseph for giving me the chance to read this Debut book.

Oh My God!! what a fantastic read this was. I was hooked from a few pages in. Although the story flips from a while back to the present day you and kept wondering even more who could the chestnut man be and I didn't have a clue untill Søren decided to reveal it. I was certainly not expecting that.

A huge well done Søren Sveistrup on this amazingly gripping and on thde edge of your seat mystery thrill. You have certainly gained another fan with me.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is after a really good mystery thriller that will keep you guessing right up untill the last second. I also think that this would be a great read for book club groups.

Superb, the characters truly came to life, I found myself holding my breath so many times as the story line weaved it’s magic, just as I thought it was coming to a conclusion it then found another avenue to go down, it has you terrified but still wanting to know more, I really loved the two detectives, Cannot praise this book enough,

This nail-biting debut from the creator of the hit crime drama The Killing is a stylish and atmospheric thriller that follows the race to find a serial killer terrorizing Copenhagen. With unrelenting tension, flesh and blood characters and atmospheric setting, this is one not to miss this month.

3.5 stars

I haven’t watched The Killing (Forbrydelsen), the successful Danish TV series. My relation with TV–or what we used to call TV, as internet have changed the definition of television-is almost not existing these days. I prefer to read.

What The Chestnut Man has to do with The Killing? The man behind the two stories is Søren Sveistrup, better known for his work in TV. Not having watched The Killing I cannot make the comparison that the stunningly success of the TV series inevitably generates. Maybe this is a good thing.

The Chestnut Man is a noir crime story, very Scandinavian in itself, what we call Nordic noir. It reminded me Henning Mankell’s shocking crime stories where the complex relationships, the ever-present violence and the corruption in the welfare state is a central theme.

As in many Nordic noir stories, in The Chestnut Man, Søren Sveistrup examines crime in the wider context of a damaged society. The Scandinavian welfare model represents an ideal, modern society based on solidarity among citizens and ensuring a safety net for everyone. Søren Sveistrup reflects on the dark side of this model, more specifically how the welfare state fails to provide social security and welfare to children from abuse and neglect.

Central characters in the story are two police investigators, who, one might say, have many of the typical gender characteristics found in modern crime stories. Naia Thulin is a hard-working single mum, very efficient, smart and with a strong attention to detail. She is also aloof and unconventional in her personal relationships. Mark Hess, is a sad and burned-out cop, with a detached demeanour and an alcohol problem. But he is also, clever, insightful and possess an unflinching determination to do whatever necessary to uncover the mystery.

If you are looking for originality, you won’t find it in The Chestnut Man and some of the crime scenes could be –for the most delicate -quite unsettling. But it but it is a multi-layer, well plotted and a page-turner story and there are lots of twists and unexpected events. I enjoyed the book very much.

I forgot to breathe on several occasions whilst reading “The Chestnut Man”. It’s thrilling, chilling and fast-paced throughout. A terrifying and brilliant read. I don’t think I’ll ever look at a conker the same way again!