HELLE AND DEATH
BY OSKAR JENSEN
Published: 18th January 2024
VIPER BOOKS
Torben Helle – art historian, Danish expat and owner of several excellent Scandinavian jumpers – has been dragged to a remote snowbound Northumbrian mansion for a ten-year reunion with old university friends. Things start to go sideways when their host, a reclusive and irritating tech entrepreneur, makes some shocking revelations at the dinner table. And when these are followed by an apparent suicide, the group faces a test of their wits … and their trust. Snowed in and cut off, surrounded by enigmatic housekeepers and off-duty police inspectors, not to mention a peculiar last will and testament, suspicion and sarcasm quickly turn to panic. As the temperature drops and the tension mounts, Torben decides to draw upon all the tricks of Golden Age detectives past in order to solve the mystery: how much money would it take to turn one of his old friends into a murderer? But he’d better be quick, or someone else might end up dead …
With a fantastic cast of characters, an old, country house setting amid a snowstorm and a peculiar host, Helle and Death is a joyous murder mystery – if there can be such a thing!
With the brilliantly written Torben Helle (that’s two syllables) at the helm, and without really trusting each other, the group of old friends try to work out how host Anthony comes to wind up dead in his bed of an apparent suicide. There’s time to get to know each character, but with plenty of secrets between them, not to mention a few red herrings, at least one of the group may have something to hide.
This was a great book in so many ways, and is perfect for fans of murder mysteries, cozy crime and similar.
*I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley, and this is my unbiased review. Thanks to Viper Books, Oskar Jensen and NetGalley.
4 / 5
A cosy mystery with fantastic characters