THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE

 

SYNOPSIS

In the coronary care unit at one of Copenhagen's leading medical centres, a nurse fills a syringe with an overdose of heart medication and stealthily enters the room of an older male patient.

Six days earlier, a paperboy on his route in the centre of the city stumbles upon a macabre find: the body of a dead woman, lying in a fountain, her arms marked with small incisions. Cause of death? Exsanguination - the draining of all the blood in her body. Clearly, this is no ordinary murder.

Jeppe Kørner, recovering from a painful divorce and in the throes of a new relationship, takes on the investigation. His partner, Anette Werner, now on leave after an unexpected pregnancy, is restless at home. While Jeppe leads the official search, Anette can't stop herself from doing a little detective work as well. But operating on her own exposes her to dangers she can't even begin to realise.

As the investigation ventures into dark and dangerous corners, it uncovers an ambition and greed festering beneath the surface of caregiving institutions, all leading back to the mysterious Butterfly House.

Title: The butterfly house

Author: Katrine Engberg

Series: Korner & Werner #2

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Publication date: January 14, 2021

REVIEW

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

If the other day I wrote about how I loved locked room murder mysteries today I'm writing about the other subgenre I'm completely obsessed with, Nordic Noir. It can be books, tv shows, music...if it comes from Scandinavia I'll probably like it!

The butterfly house is book 2 in the Korner and Werner series, follow up to The tenant, and a huge improvement in my opinion. I liked The tenant, but I LOVED The butterfly house. Maybe it was a translation issue (I read the first one in Spanish and this one in English), but I found that the author's writing style just went up several notches.

The series is set in Copenhagen, my lat trip before the pandemic started, so reading this made me also a bit nostalgic. I just love reading about places I've been and I can totally visualize in my head.

Both Jeppe and Anette are back, but she's on maternity leave and adjusting to her new situation, so they don't share much time together during the investigation, but the little time they had together was so nice to see them go back and forth. I like how there's no romantic interest between them, letting them deal with their own issues without that added tension that would only ballast the whole story. They're both really well developed characters and the writing shows that the author really knows them well already. It was also a nice surprise to meet back with Esther de Laurenti, one of the main characters from the previous book.

The murders revolve around the Butterfly House, a psychiatric care facility for teens. I found really interesting the depiction of both mental health workers and the patients in there, how suffering from mental health issues is still today an stigma and how sometimes those supposed to care and protect vulnerable people end up harming them more because of their own interests.

The M.O. was so original I had to immediately google the murder weapon. The lesson in History of the medicine and medical devices was truly fascinating.

The story moved at quite a fast pace with no shortage of leads and suspects that kept me guessing till the very end. Those last 50 pages were heart attack inducing and I just kept yelling at the book "who are you? WHO ARE YOU?" until the killer was revealed.

Fantastic addition to the series and a must read for all those Nordic crime fans like me.