Søren Sveistrup may not be a household name, but he knows how to create an engaging thriller. The hit Netflix program “The Chestnut Man” is an adaptation of his international bestseller of the same name, and he wrote the terrific series “The Killing,” which ran from 2007 to 2012. 

Sveistrup’s latest effort is HIDE AND SEEK, a lengthy and diabolically complex novel that takes the premise for a children’s game to deadly places as a killer reawakens a decades-old cold case to torment the detectives of the crime unit known as NC3. Readers may recall that this is the same team from THE CHESTNUT MAN.

The prologue, which takes place in 1992, is long and chilling. It sets the story in motion, and the entire experience is told at a fierce velocity that is difficult to pull off in a book exceeding 500 pages. A school bus driver is leading an excursion of young people to do some birdwatching at a local marsh. Shockingly, while the children are enjoying an innocent game of hide and seek, one of them finds human remains.

"HIDE AND SEEK is a slick-moving read. I was approaching page 500 before I could even catch my breath. I hope we have not seen the last of the NC3 squad, as well as more clever and thrilling murder cases with an edge."

Jumping ahead to the present, Silje Thomsen returns to her place of business to discover she is not alone. It will be the last time anyone sees her alive. Prior to her disappearance, she had told her daughter that she was changing cell phone numbers. What she failed to mention was that a series of sick text messages, all sounding like a sing-song nursery rhyme, were being sent to her and caused immediate alarm and distress.

The police will learn about this when they go through Silje’s phone records, and those in the know feel the chill as it takes them back to a series of murders that started with the events of the prologue and later would include a woman named Caroline Holst, who also will play a role in the current case.

The search for Silje commences on Valentine’s Day, with Naia Thulin and Mark Hess leading the investigation. When Silje’s dismembered body is found, the parallels to the cold case and what will soon become a new string of murders have the entire area on edge. The media, the public and NC3 leadership want answers. 

Caroline’s sister, Marie, is questioned as Thulin and Hess attempt to seek connections that might make sense. The killer does not discriminate and takes a male victim, Philip Lund, next. The team eventually determines that Silje and Philip were working with the Agency of Family Law on their recent divorces. When this information takes them to Ditte Vangsø, who also is linked to the firm, they know that the time for coincidences has long since passed. Vangsø tells the investigators that she knew the two victims from a support group, which takes them down another road of potential leads.

Nothing is ever made simple in this book, and Sveistrup knows how to keep the fear factor as high as the tension in a story that will take several sharp turns before the ultimate outcome is uncovered. 

HIDE AND SEEK is a slick-moving read. I was approaching page 500 before I could even start to catch my breath. I hope we have not seen the last of the NC3 squad, as well as more clever and thrilling murder cases with an edge.