The Bald Detective - Anna Grue
Den skaldede detektiv
The Bald Detective
Vol. 4
Politikens Forlag, 2010
422 pages
Summary
The fourth volume in the series about Dan Sommerdahl deals with the
transition from boyhood and is told from three points of view: a
sixteen-year-old boy, an immature detective and a schizophrenic stalker
stuck in limbo between childhood and adulthood.
Rolf Harskov was 16 years and 27 days old when he was hit by a train and
died. Rolf's sister, Gry had reached exactly that age when she snorted
cocaine mixed with a lethal dose of rat poison. The unhappy parents are
sure that the two deaths were in fact murders. Their youngest child,
Malthe, is now approaching the age that was fatal to his siblings. The
parents contact private detective Dan Sommerdahl and beg him to find the
killer before it's too late.
When the bald detective finally realises how things fit together, Malthe is away at the Roskilde Festival with his friends.
Dan Sommerdahl has only have a few days to find the teenage boy in the crowd. Amongst 70,000 festive youngsters - and a murderer who has it in for him.
Reviews
“This is her forth crime novel about the private detective Dan Sommerdahl and it is well-constructed, well-written and really, very, very thrilling. (...). Clues are thrown in here and there. Your own detective brain is put to work. It’s actually wonderfully relaxing, strangely enough. So get cracking with no. 5, Grue. No. 4 is terribly good!” - Britta Bjerre, Søndag
“Anna Grue is superbly well-trimmed - without missing a beat she orchestrates the plot and a cast of characters with all of her well-developed sense of consistency and colloquial dialogue, and the result is a great read. This fourth volume in the series is as well constructed a crime novel as you could could wish for.” - Katinka Bruhn, Weekendavisen
“The interchange between various characters, dialogue packed with
information and frequent clues to the mystery keeps this crime novel
moving, with Dan once again the central figure. Malthe adds another
perspective, as the potential victim and the only first-person narrator
in the story, while a third, more primitive, perhaps even autistic
angle, is brought by Mogens, whose favourite occupation is stalking his
idol, Kirstine, an actress with a leading role in a soap opera.”
**** Birte Strandby, MetroXpress
“Terribly entertaining crime novel about love and revenge, with Dan Sommerdahl racing against the clock to save someone’s life. Unmatched at the top of Scandinavian crime fiction. (...) The series about the bald detective is definitely at the the better end of Scandinavian crime fiction, where the combination of work and private life is an essential ingredient. So roll on the next volume, Anna” - Marit Haugaard, Litteratursiden.dk
Anna Grue - Author of the Dan Sommerdahl Series
