THE LAKE (a deceptively simple title) is the Nordic noir entry of the week, and a fine one it is. It is the fourth of seven (thus far) of a complex police procedural series featuring Konrad Simonsen, a homicide investigator with the Copenhagen, Denmark police force and his quirky, complicated team. Originally published in Denmark in 2012 by sister/brother authors Lotte and Søren Hammer (and now making its appearance in the United States courtesy of a fine translation by Charlotte Barslund), THE LAKE toys with the traditional structure of the mystery novel to great and unexpected effect.

The book jumps right into things with the introduction of four characters, three of whom are singularly unpleasant and the fourth of whom is a poor unfortunate in so many ways. She is a young woman named “Jessica” (by her captors for convenience) and is a victim of human trafficking who quickly meets her end when a brutal punishment for noncompliance goes further than intended. Jessica’s corpse is disposed of in a lake on private property near Copenhagen. The subsequent discovery of her skeleton several months later brings Simonsen and his team from the Copenhagen, Denmark police force to investigate. The reader is given witness to the murder and knows the perpetrators, and is far ahead of Simonsen and his crew, at least for a while.

"Watching the ways in which Simonsen’s team goes down the wrong paths as well as the occasional right ones constitutes a great deal of the book’s entertainment, but its primary charm is the interplay presented by the various characters..."

Given that the murder is somewhat of a cold case, the investigation seems almost hopeless, a significant problem given the publicity that occurs when a politically incorrect reference to the case is made on national television. Indeed, a chance encounter involving Simonsen’s team while they are surveying the area near the body’s discovery leads them to a potential clue and ultimately results in the resolution of a violent sexual assault case that seemed all but solvable. It is a tenuous connection, however, one that still doesn’t quite get the team there, even if they don’t know it. There are forces at play of some ongoing magnitude behind the murder of a young woman far from home, and THE LAKE is as much about those crimes and its perpetrators as it is about a murder investigation, where the quietly driven and very steely Simonsen sees himself, quite correctly, as the last person to speak for the victim.

Watching the ways in which Simonsen’s team goes down the wrong paths as well as the occasional right ones constitutes a great deal of the book’s entertainment, but its primary charm is the interplay presented by the various characters, not the least of which is between Simonsen and whoever he happens to be interrogating. However, he has a very formidable adversary, one who figures prominently throughout the story and particularly in a surprising conclusion that features a series of revelatory twists and turns.

The Hammers are in no hurry to get to where they are going in THE LAKE, as the focus is primarily on character and plot development (nothing wrong with that) as opposed to mayhem and explosions. This series relies on the drive and progress of its characters --- good, bad and ugly --- to keep its considerable worldwide base of readers coming back…and come back they do, for good reason. As for American fans of Simonsen and company, more is on the way.