The collector A novel

Danish author Hancock's tense sequel to 2021's The Corpse Flower finds journalist Heloise Kaldan, who's five weeks pregnant and conflicted about her current relationship, visiting a Copenhagen abortion clinic. Just as her attentive physician, Jens Bjerre, is about to test her for hyperthyroidism, he's interrupted by an urgent call--his 10-year-old son, Lukas, has gone missing after school--and in a panic he leaves the clinic. Heloise and her compassionate police detective friend, Erik Schäfer, investigate the disappearance of the boy, who was keenly interested in pareidolia, "a psychological phenomenon in which random patterns are interpreted as faces." A recent photo on Lukas's phone shows a barn door that looks like a face. The quest for answers presents Heloise and Erik with a host of social concerns that at times overwhelm the main plot line, including Denmark's refugee problem, alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse, and even the American-led involvement in Afghanistan. Hancock, though, does a good job portraying her leads' complex motivations. Scandi noir fans will want to stay tuned. Agent: Anna Frankl, Nordin Agency (Sweden). (Nov.)

The apparent kidnapping of a schoolboy kicks off a second grim outing for Det. Erik Schäfer and investigative journalist Heloise Kaldan. Heloise thinks she's having a really bad day when she goes to see Dr. Jens Bjerre to confirm her in-home pregnancy test and get help securing an abortion. She's distressed to find that her troubles, serious as they are, are jolted into perspective when she hears Bjerre get a phone call that informs him that his son has gone missing from Copenhagen's Nyholm School. In fact, it turns out that no one's seen 10-year-old Lukas Bjerre since his father dropped him off that morning, several precious hours ago, and that he could have been spirited far away in the meantime. A reported sighting of Lukas' corpse in a frozen moat leads only to the recovery of his jacket, whose bloodstains and traces of rat poison hint at a dark story. Erik and his colleagues in the Violent Crimes Unit work every lead, and they're both horrified and frustrated when the DNA found in the blood on Lukas' jacket leads them to a man who was shot to death very shortly after the boy's disappearance, or maybe even before. As Hancock shows the dragnet widening to include an ever wider array of characters, her story threatens to lose focus. But though it lacks the unforgiving intensity of The Corpse Flower (2021), Erik and Heloise's memorable debut, it closes the circle with a suitably nightmarish snap. Despite the colder weather, this slice of Nordic noir reads surprisingly like top-line American procedurals. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.