Cry Wolf by Hans Rosenfeldt

*Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Publication Date: December 28, 2021

Publisher: Hanover Square Press

Pages: 399

Genre: Nordic thriller

Rating: 4.5/5

Cry Wolf filled a hole I didn’t know I had in my heart by not reading a Nordic thriller in like a year. I love all the benchmarks of the genre and how twisty and suspenseful the stories are. Cry Wolf follows a plethora of characters all set in the town of Haparanda, Sweden. And the story revolves around a massive drug deal that went sideways and how it affected the lives of the characters. We follow the police as they are investigating, the people who took the money and drugs, an assassin who is tasked with finding the drugs and money, and various other people who are connected to the story in some way.

The vast amount of characters was the biggest obstacle with this story. Not only are there so many but there is no distinction between which perspective we are following. Sometimes each chapter would be someone new but there were also chapters where each paragraph it would switch. But I did love the addition of the omnipresent narrator that was the town itself. It was such a clever way to tell the story and not only give some history to the place but also to foreshadow events.

As with a typical Nordic thriller this story can get dark and graphic. The twists and turns were also a hallmark of the genre and I loved it. All the chapters are short which kept me flipping through this book at a frantic pace to find out what was going to happen next. I will say that, objectively, parts of this story required a hefty suspension of belief. Since I read it so quickly I was so fully immersed in the story that I was one hundred percent committed to wherever this book was going to take me.

Goodreads has this book listed as the first book in a series following the female detective, Hannah Wester, but I can’t find any info about a second book. There may already be one in Norwegian but not one that is in English. Fingers crossed that one day we will get to continue on with this explosive and captivating world.