This unputdownable novel by the Danish writer Eddie Thomas Petersen is a family saga, a murder mystery, and a portrait of Skagen in the dark and in the snow, full of alliances and old secrets. Toby Bainton's translation does full justice to the calmness of the narration, a thriller without gore, but utterly gripping.
The middle-aged artist Ellen Keldberg was found frozen on a street bench in Skagen in northern Denmark, and now lies laid out on her bed, waiting for a post-mortem. The mystery of her death, and who left her out in the cold, is unravelled by two separate investigations, by the hapless Mikkel, her nephew, and the mysterious Anne Sofie, a dark and anarchic presence. This translation of Petersen's novel Ønskebarnet is by Toby Bainton.
