Farewell to freedom

In Blaedel's gloomy third procedural to be published in the U.S. (after 2012's Only One Life), the police investigation into the death of a young woman in Copenhagen's disreputable Skelbaekgade neighborhood is met with indifference from potential witnesses desensitized by drugs, alcohol, and hard living. Det. Louise Rick's journalist friend, Camilla Lind, fights for coverage of the case, but is understandably sidetracked when her 11-year-old son discovers an abandoned baby in a church. Louise and Camilla trace both cases back to the sinister Bosko, who profits from war tourism and human trafficking alike. Flat writing suits a determinedly bleak landscape, but does not inspire, and the intriguing possibilities of Blaedel centering this gritty thriller on female friendship go mostly unexplored. The novel succeeds best in brief, haunting portraits of Copenhagen's downtrodden: immigrants, failures, and the chronically unlucky. The tough narrative voice curbs sentiment. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

In the third book in the Det. Louise Rick series (Only One Life), the brutal murder of a young Eastern European woman leads Rick and her colleagues at the Copenhagen Police Department into the disturbing world of prostitution and human trafficking. At the same time, Camilla Lund, an investigative journalist and Rick's friend, calls her about a baby girl found abandoned in a church. Another murder traumatizes Camilla so much that she quits her job at the newspaper, but she and Rick realize that both cases may be linked when a second abandoned infant is discovered. VERDICT Blaedel once again tackles a current social issue in her mystery. The two parallel stories are equally compelling, with the end of the case leading the reader to believe that Rick's life will be changed forever. Recommended for series fans and readers of Scandinavian crime fiction. Blaedel was voted Denmark's most popular novelist for the third time in 2011.-Jean King, West Hempstead P.L., NY (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A low-voltage police thriller with predictable twists and turns riffs off the current rage for Scandinavian-based noir crime fiction. Blaedel continues the adventures of Copenhagen police detective Louise Rick in this tepid installment centering on the overlapping worlds of prostitution and human trafficking. Rick, assigned to investigate the killing of a young woman believed to be an Eastern European prostitute found with her throat slashed in a city alleyway, gets a taste of what life on the streets is like for the hundreds of young women who make their ways to her city from places like Serbia and Croatia. Meanwhile, as Louise settles into the investigation, her best friend since high school, Camilla Lind, a crack reporter for a top newspaper, receives a call from her son that he and a friend of his have found a tiny baby in a church. Camilla rushes over to the church and assists police with the baby, then pitches her editor a story on Louise's murder case. Although her editor is less impressed with the murder than the baby's discovery, he reluctantly gives the go-ahead and soon Camilla, too, is deeply invested in the case of the dead young woman. Between Louise and Camilla, they enter a shadowy world where women are brought to Denmark and turned into sex slaves against their wills, working for pimps who abuse and sometimes kill them. As the two women discover, there is more than meets the eye in this case and the people they meet during the course of the investigation; things grow dangerous and Camilla finds herself inadvertently thrust into harm's way. Hampered by a clunky translation, both the novel and the investigation are slow paced and populated with uninspiring characters that make the book a dull read. Fans of the genre will not find this stripped-down, by-the-numbers plot and its shallow characters very mesmerizing.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.