Killed by Thomas Enger transl by Kari Dickson @EngerThomas @Orenda Books @WestCamel @AnneCater #Killed #HenningJuul

 

Source: Review Copy

Publication: 15^th February 2018 from Orenda Books

 

Crime reporter Henning Juul thought his life was over when his young son was murdered. But that was only the beginning…

Determined to find his son’s killer, Henning doggedly follows an increasingly dangerous trail, where dark hands from the past emerge to threaten everything. His ex-wife Nora is pregnant with another man’s child, his sister Trine is implicated in the fire that killed his son and, with everyone he thought he could trust seemingly hiding something, Henning has nothing to lose … except his own life.

Packed with tension and unexpected twists, Killed is the long-awaited finale of one of the darkest, most chilling and emotive series you may ever read. Someone will be killed. But who?

I have just finished Killed and there are tears streaming down my face. This is what writing is all about. Dark, incredibly intense, emotive and with such beautiful prose, Killed is everything I wanted for this finale. Henning Juul’s life has been so bleak since the death of his son that the only thing that has kept him going has been trying to find his son’s killer.

He has lost everything he cared about, not just his six year old son, Jonas, but, despairing of his inability to try and move on, Nora has also found solace in the arms of his colleague Iver, and is now pregnant with Iver’s child.

If you haven’t read this series, I implore you to do so now, this is amongst the finest crime writing you will find anywhere and Enger’s writing has grown progressively in stature since the first book, to the extent that this book, Killed, is just a masterclass in beautiful prose.

Having said that, I would not want to diminish the brilliance of his plotting which pulls together all the threads of the previous books to give us all the answers that we have been waiting for and give us them with a cruel and unremitting darkness that is displayed in an avariciously high body count.

I can’t talk about this book without revealing too much about the plot, but this is a series that everyone who loves good writing should read. I was so engaged with the characters of Nora and Henning Juul that as I read the last few sentences and then went on to listen to the music that Juul composed for his son (Enger provides the link in the book), I just wept.

I wept for the end of a great series; I wept for the lives that were destroyed, but most of all I wept for Henning Juul, a man who deserved so much and who, in the end, well, let’s just say the end is poetry for the soul.

I don’t know what Enger will do next; but I do know that’s a journey as a reader that I want to be part of.

 

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About Thomas Enger

Thomas Enger (b. 1973) is a former journalist. He made his debut with the crime novel Burned (Skinndød) in 2010, which became an international sensation before publication. Burned is the first in a series of 5 books about the journalist Henning Juul, which delves into the depths of Oslo’s underbelly, skewering the corridors of dirty politics and nailing the fast-moving world of 24-hour news. Rights to the series have been sold to 26 countries to date. In 2013 Enger published his first book for young adults, a dark fantasy thriller called The Evil Legacy, for which he won the U-prize (best book YoungAdult). Enger also composes music, and he lives in Oslo.

If you are going to Granite Noir, or live in Aberdeen, you can see Thomas Enger perform in the Lemon Tree Lounge on Sunday 25^th February and it is free!

Follow the blog tour here, so that you can see I am not alone in my love for this series: