The Corpse on the Monastery Hill by Birgitte Abdel
As a danish person, it’s my duty to read crime books – unfortunately, I am not a huge fan. But when I got the opportunity to read and review this book (kindly offered by the danish publisher forfatterskabet.dk), I figured I would give it a go – and I am pretty happy I did!
A new psychiatric hospital is opening on Monastery Hill, and everything is off to a rough start. A corpse is found hanging in the foyer, and strange things are happening all over.
We follow the police, journalists, and the hospital employees as the story unravels itself into one big mystery.
So as I said, crime books are not something I spend a lot of time on, which might also affect how I rate this book.
I was bewildered in the first part of the book. There were so many characters, so many names to keep up with – and to make that worse, A LOT of the names was super similar to each other.
I mean, you cannot have two characters with the first name Ole in one book and expect the reader to not be confused.
In general new characters were continuously introduced, and it was hard to keep up with. Another thing that bothered me about the story was how schizophrenia was portrayed. People need to understand that schizophrenia and split personality disorder are two separate things!
Now, with that being said – I did find myself being sucked into the story. There were a lot of different things going on, distinct storylines, and various crimes being committed. And it was fun to find out how they were all connected in the end.
The book was such an easy read, I expected to spend a lot of time reading this 447 pages long novel – but it took me no time.
I could easily read 100 pages at night before bed, without staying up half the night reading.
As the story evolved, it also became more and more exciting and entertaining. I went from not really caring to needing to know what had happened.
I am not saying I’m a crime book fan now, but I enjoyed the book and am thinking of reading a bit more of them from time to time.
Also, did I mention this is supposed to become a series?
I will give the book a total of 4 out of 5 stars.
Bog Hygge 