Only One Life
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
It was clearly no accidental drowning. When a young immigrant girl is found in the watery depths of Holbaek Fjord, a piece of concrete tied around her waist and two mysterious circular patches on the back of her neck, Detective Louise Rick is called to investigate.
The girl's name was Samra, and Louise soon learns that her short life was a sad story. Abused by her father, it becomes clear that he would be capable of killing Samra if she brought dishonour to the family. But according to her family, she has done nothing to inspire this sort of violence.
Samra's best friend believes that the worst has happened and shares her concerns with the police. Within days she is also discovered dead. To top it all, Samra's younger sister has also gone missing.
In this heart-pounding new thriller from the Danish number one bestseller, Louise Rick must navigate a complex web of family ties, jealousy and obsession in seemingly idyllic Copenhagen, to find a remorseless predator, or predators, before it is too late...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Blaedel's earnest second police procedural to be published in the U.S. (after 2011's Call Me Princess), Copenhagen cop Louise Rick looks into the death of 15-year-old Samra al-Abd, a member of the city's close-knit community of Jordanian immigrants, found in shallow water of a nearby fjord weighed down with concrete. Is this an unfortunate but mundane murder, or an honor killing, a family turning on one of its own? The subsequent fatal bludgeoning of Samra's best friend, Dicta M ller, confuses the issue. Hostile, judgmental Danish media spotlight Samra's violent family history as Rick and her colleagues struggle to find the truth behind the two girls' murders. The novel presents a nuanced and compassionate view of modern Copenhagen's immigrants, eschewing a simple-minded demonization of outsiders or of the Danes themselves, but the workmanlike prose and flat depiction of the investigation make the story less engaging than it should be.
