Random Things Tours: A Death in Denmark by Amulya Malladi

 

I am following Amulya Malladi for a while and it is getting better and better by each book. My favorite part of discovering this author is how she explores very important society, middle-class-related topics from new angles. She storifies the actuality while adding the creative touch to her stories, while revealing completely new meanings.

A Death in Denmark, a country where Malladi herself used to live as an expat before, promises again something different. Aimed to be just the beginning of crime and detective series featuring ex-cop Gabriel Præst, it follows the tectonic rifts of the Danish identity, caught between a past mostly obliterated and a present that may predict a dark future. 

The trigger was the murder of a well-known Iraqi refugee, Yousef Ahmed, killed by the far right. Tracing the crime, Præst, a jazz afficionado and dedicated father, is decided to find the truth, but the journey will lead him to the darkest episodes of Denmark history. Denmark was usually considered a friendly country for Jews, but the truth is more complicated from the historical point of view. As in many other countries, including Germany itself, the ties between the big companies and the Nazi regime is far from being clarified and the search for the murder will bring the investigator and the reader in those dark corners of history.

Dark episodes that Europe is reviving old fears. Europe, Denmark as well, is facing anti-Muslim hate and racism. All those elements of everyday life European politics are inserted into the plot development. The end result is a story that it´s both entertaining and inviting to a most serious look around our immediate reality. Maybe we can change something or not, but at least we are getting aware of it.

A Death in Denmark is an articulated, eventful and thoughtful crime novel. I can´t wait to see what Præst will have to solve next and also to read Malladi´s next book.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own