A Mother's Love: A Novel

While there are some annoying bureaucratic and misogynistic issues at play in this novel, Louise Rick and her new team are organized, efficient, caring and work well together.

Their investigation begins with a murder of an inn owner in the vacation town of Tasinge, and escalates from there.

Strong capable characters, good timing, excellent plot and so much emotional depth.

Good read and better than expected, especially since this book is the most current in the Louise Rick series. I usually feel its a disadvantage coming into a series in the middle or the end. Now I need to 'continue' at the start of the series.

When I requested an advance reading copy of this book, I was unaware that it is in fact the eleventh book in the Louise Rick / Camilla Lind series. Fortunately, though I was obviously missing information about previous events in the characters’ personal lives, there is sufficient explanation that the novel can be read as a standalone.

Dorthe, a widowed innkeeper, is found murdered. In the course of the investigation into her death, a search of the inn reveals a concealed nursery in which a child obviously lived. Since Dorthe was childless, who is the child and where is s/he? The search for a murderer also becomes a search for a child whose identity is unknown.

The investigation is lead by Detective Louise Rick, head of the recently show more created Mobile Task Unit charged with assisting with difficult cases across Denmark. Besides having to work with a hastily cobbled together team of officers she has never met, Louise finds herself having to work with Eik, her ex-fiancé. Louise does receive help from her friend, crime reporter Camilla Lind.

I had difficulty understanding the relationship between Louise and Camilla, though the suggestion is that they are best friends. In this novel, they have little interaction other than phone calls and texts. When they do communicate, Louise is brusque and churlish. Though Camilla repeats that she is taking a break from work, Louise insists she do some research for her. After demanding her help, Louise later rudely snaps at Camilla, accusing her of pumping her for information about the investigation.

There are a lot of twists in the plot to keep the reader entertained. I did find, however, that the events in the church at the end seem to have been included just to add suspense by prolonging the conclusion. Those events are not only unnecessary but also far-fetched. The suicide of a troubled individual is understandable but the other actions taken by that person make little sense.

There are other things that make no sense. How can two people (a killer and a victim) leave the same location at the same time and both arrive at a second location at the same time when the killer stops en route to pick up the murder weapon? How can someone who is hiding a young child in his/her house be absent for extended periods from home? There is no suggestion of that child being drugged. At one point Louise “went to join [Melvin and Jonas] in the living room” though Melvin had left for his own apartment and Jonas “disappeared into his room”? Then there’s the fact that the investigation is in a small town where it’s usual for people to know a lot about each others’ activities, yet there are so many secrets and secret locations? The number of evil characters totally lacking in humanity also requires some suspension of disbelief.

Despite the twists, I identified the murderer early on. There’s the title, of course, and then a definite focus on a subplot – both clues that a regular reader of crime fiction cannot miss.

This is an entertaining though not exceptional book because of the plot holes. Readers who have followed the series from the beginning may be interested in the developments in Louise and Camilla’s personal lives.

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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