#14: The Midnight Witness by Sara Blaedel

A rookie homicide detective and her best friend, a hard-driving crime reporter, work two cases following parallel lines; a strangled young woman and a reporter whose death is originally reported as an accident.  They tackle them alongside each other, and at odds as well, leading to an explosive conclusion in Sara Blaedel's The Midnight Witness.

Blaedel is a popular Danish author, and I thought this book hit solid, but familiar, crime beats.  The best parts are the Copenhagen setting with its cultural aspects, as well as the main characters and their friendship.

This was a good outing in her long-running series and of interest to fans of international police procedurals.

I listened to this on audiobook on loan from the Henry County-New Castle Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.

#13: The Forgotten Girls by Sara Blaedel

A Copenhagen cop moves to a Missing Persons unit, and almost immediately is assigned the confounding case of a recently-deceased mentally disabled woman who was actually reported dead thirty years prior.  Meanwhile, a serial rapist stalks the cop's hometown of Hvalso, and she slowly begins to realize the cases are tied together in Sara Blaedel's The Forgotten Girls.

Blaedel is apparently well established in Denmark, but this is her first novel translated into English.  A good thing, as this is a solid, albeit grim, police procedural livened somewhat by the interpersonal relationships between the cop, her new partner, and her longtime best friend, an investigative journalist on the brink of her wedding.

The tough subject matter--which discusses the often poor history of mental health care, and a series of rapes--isn't helped by a downbeat, enigmatic ending.  But it is a good read for the discerning, and it's nice to have a fresh voice (to English readers) from the Scandinavian crime scene.

I borrowed this from the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana.