I missed Agnete Friis and Lene Kaaberbøl’s first hit Danish thriller, THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE, last year. After hearing so much about it, I grabbed a copy of the second book by the writing duo, INVISIBLE MURDER, as soon as I could get my hands on it.

"INVISIBLE MURDER will blow your mind.... It races towards an epic finish, an ending that leaves the reader both shocked and wonderfully satisfied. In the crowded world of Nordic crime, INVISIBLE MURDER rises above as a don’t-miss title."

Scandinavian noir has gotten to a saturation point by now. What began with Stieg Larsson has turned into an English-language book deal for any Nordic thriller writer. The litany of umlauts and slashed “o”s can make a reader dizzy. Some are absolutely mind-blowing, others tepid.

INVISIBLE MURDER will blow your mind.

Opening in an abandoned Soviet hospital in Hungary, now ravaged by the local youth for anything they can sell on the black market, two boys find something beneath the collapsed floor of the sealed basement. More than any microscope or expired drug that others stripped from the hospital long ago, this will make them huge amounts of money.

The setting works its way to Denmark, where Nina Borg, nurse and heroine of THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE, finds an abandoned garage on the outskirts of Copenhagen filled with Hungarian Gypsies who are all suffering from the same malaise, all horribly sick from some unknown cause.

In Budapest, Sandor Horvath is just one exam away from his law degree. After years of studying as a hermit, he sees the end in sight --- until suddenly, he fails his perfectly-executed final exam and is kicked out of the university for a reason unknown.

These characters all come together in Denmark, where Friis and Kaaberbøl throw the reader for loop after loop. It races towards an epic finish, an ending that leaves the reader both shocked and wonderfully satisfied. In the crowded world of Nordic crime, INVISIBLE MURDER rises above as a don’t-miss title.