The Killing 2

By: David Hewson

Narrated by: Christian Rodska

Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Thirty nine steps rose from the busy road of Tuborgvej into Mindelunden, with its quiet graves and abiding bitter memories. Lennart Brix, head of the Copenhagen homicide team, felt he’d been walking those most of his life. Beneath the entrance arch, sheltering from the icy rain, he couldn’t help but recall that first visit almost fifty years before. A five-year-old boy, clutching the hand of his father, barely able to imagine what he was about see…

The bark of a dog broke his reverie. Brix looked at the forensic officers, white bunny suits, mob hats, marching grim-faced down the rows of graves, towards the space in the little wood where the rest of the team was gathering… Three gnarled stakes, replicas now, with the originals in the Frihedsmuseet.

A woman was tied to the centre pole, hands behind her back, bound with heavy rope round her torso. Blonde hair soaked with rain and worse, head down, chin on chest, crouched awkwardly on her knees. A gaping wound at her neck like a sick second smile. She wore a blue dressing gown slashed in places all the way to the waist, flesh and skin visible where the frenzied blade had stabbed at her.

Her face was bruised and dirty. Blood poured from her nostrils, had dried down each side of her mouth, like makeup on a tragic clown…

©2012 Pan Macmillan (P)2013 David Hewson

Critic reviews

“As gripping as the TV series. It will keep you pinned to very last page” (Jens Lapidus)

”David Hewson has achieved the seemingly impossible . . . just as gripping as the television serial . . . this book is worth reading” (The Literary Review)

”A novel in the hugely experienced hands of David Hewson that defies expectation. Hewson’s style is tight, lean, almost like a film script” (Express)

”Clear, clipped prose is beautifully up to the task, as is his forensic attention to the original's details . . . And the ending leaves a very different, but no less thought-provoking taste” (Mirror)

”David Hewson should be commended for writing such a page-turner of a book . . . The Killing has enough twists and turns to satisfy not only any avid follower of the series but also readers that are coming to it first time around” (www.shotsmag.co.uk)

With different narrator could have been five stars

I had to restart dozens of times to get accustomed to speed of narration. Foreign names usually are not a problem for me but this is read so fast it ended up being gobbledygook. By the second part, my ear had adapted somewhat and was able to finally distinguish the different characters. Very difficult listening! But good enough story to soldier on in spite of narrator….

He writes stories about people who could be real.

Would you listen to The Killing 2 again? Why?

I might listen to Killing 2 again. I've listened to parts of it 2 or 3 times already. The author packs a lot of stuff in and I missed parts of it on the first pass. His characters are believable. I know we should engage in the willing suspension of disbelief when we read/listen to fiction but sometimes the characters are so unbelievable that it hurts. The plot is very interesting. It is a story that I would listen to with my son or my sisters with. The character dialog has the "F" words but that doesn't bother me personally. They sometimes use phrases like "Oh, for "f" sake" which I find amusing. There were one or two brief sex events that I would fast forward through if I were listening to it with my son or sisters. But the brief sex scenes/scene were part of the character development. The author didn't set the main evil characters up to be Christian which is refreshing. The author wasn't preachy about social issues.

Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?

The plot kept me on the edge of my seat after I got into the story. The way it started I thought it would be your typical detective story and I was tuning it out until I realized it wasn't it. I got the story because I was very impressed with the author's work as a co-author in "Macbeth The Novel." The story seemed plausible and the characters seemed real and I just kept listening to more and more as the story unfolded.

What does Christian Rodska bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narrator was very good. He was very understandable and didn't have any voice traits that took my mind off of the story.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There was one moment that particularly moved me but I don't want to give away the story by describing it.

Brilliantly done

Very exciting. I've seen all of the original Danish TV productions (and they are riveting) and yet David Hewson does such a brilliant job that I thoroughly enjoyed this amazing novelization. By the way, Audible also offers the third and last series (again written by Hewson), but not the first book - that situation needs to be addressed without further delay! I should also mention Christian Rodska's excellent narration (including his crusty old men vocalizations; he would make a great Rumpole!).

1

Author gets one point for the long
book. It is awful! Narrator sounds as if he might be reading
names in an old phonebook. it sounds like he repeats the same line several hundred tines. author's fault, not his. what a boring book.