Soren Sveistrup Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| The Chestnut Man | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Author Soren Sveistrup was born in Denmark in the year 1968. He was adopted as a baby, and went to live with his new parents, both of whom were teachers on Thuro, the isolated island in the south of Denmark.
Soren found out when he was only thirteen years old that he and his siblings had all been adopted at birth. Their biological mother had gotten pregnant too young, gave him up for adoption in an effort to give him some opportunities that she could never give him.
He writes the phenomenal Danish television program called “The Killing” which won many international awards and was sold in over a hundred countries. Sveistrup also wrote the adaptation for “The Snowman” based off of the novel of the same name by Jo Nesbo.
Sveistrup got Master’s degrees in both History and Literature from the University of Copenhagen and studied at the Danish Film School.
He has won a BAFTA for his work on “The Killing” and an Emmy for “Nikolaj and Julie”.
His debut novel, “The Chestnut Man” was released in the year 2019. His work is from the genre of mystery.
Soren believes that Nordic noir is about emotion, not just splatter and blood and women getting molested. Without emotion, there is no reason to write anything. Not even a crime novel.
He writes about all of these emotions so that he can control and hide his own. For example a scene from “The Killing” is based off of the time his mother committed suicide and he had to tell his younger siblings about it. At the time, he was only twenty-one years old.
He works through his own baggage each time he writes something. He realizes that he was obsessed with trying to get confirmation as a human being by chasing success and attempting to meet the expectations of others. Soren still lacks self-worth and believes it is going to follow him around for the rest of his life.
Part of this comes from finding out that he was adopted and that his parents have some horrible problems and that he felt they didn’t love him enough to keep from divorcing each other. Before too long, too, his mom finds it tough to not even stay in this life despite her love for him. He’s had a tough time admitting all this, finally saying it at the age of fifty.
Sveistrup had wanted to pen a great Danish novel, which never happened in his twenties, for whatever reason. He had a tough time during this phase of his life, feeling lonely and complicated each day. He would go to the video store, renting things like Dirty Harry and Tarantino. It made him realize he could write for movies too, and he decided to go off to film school.
When Soren writes screenplays, he writes them in the present tense, and at one time, he read a ton of crime novels, which were written in the past tense. This made them not as alive and dangerous as they could have been without this filter they had.
After writing a few screenplays for movies, he found he realized he just wanted to be himself, and not depend on producers and actors, and directors.
When he was first writing his debut novel, he had to write the book, a television show, and two movies. He wrote about 170 pages or so, before collapsing from the stress, and it made him toss in the white towel. For six long months, he was unable to do anything, and had to go into therapy. His wife and publisher told him that what he had written was too good to set aside. It made him crawl back to his computer to continue the story.
His breakdown changed his life, in quite a few bad ways, obviously. Soren had never before experienced anything like it, as he had convinced himself that he was strong and was able to handle anything at all. It made him see that more success is not going to mend the inside his heart, and that winning prizes is not going to heal him. The thing that matters is the need for human relationships and love, as well as people that know and love you.
The idea for the Chestnut Man came from something he found at his kids’s kindergarten. He heard a children’s song that mentions “apple men, come on in”, and in each refrain you can use a different fruit. One day, he heard them sing about chestnut men, come in. Since he has a bunch of anxieties, it sounded a tad sinister to hear about kids inviting this kind of nature in.
“The Chestnut Man” is the first stand alone novel, which was released in the year 2019. The cops make a horrible discovery in a suburb of Copenhagen. A young lady was killed and dumped at a playground. A hand was cut off, and right above her hangs a tiny doll made out of chestnuts.
Naia Thulin, a young detective, is given the case. Mark Hess, her partner and a burned-out investigator, has been kicked out of Europol’s headquarters in The Hague. They quickly find a mysterious piece of evidence on the chestnut man, it connects it to a case of a girl that went missing a year before and is now presumed dead. She was the daughter of a politician named Rosa Hartung. There was a man that confessed to her killing, and the case was solved long ago.
Quickly after, another lady is found killed, and there is another chestnut man. Hess and Thulin suspect there might be a connection between the killed women, the Hartung case, and some killer that is spreading fear through the entire country. What could it be?
Thulin and Hess race against the clock, because it has become obvious that the killer is on a mission that is far from being over.
This is a full throttle thriller that is charged with adrenaline and drenched in atmosphere. The book pulses with menace, and will make your heart race. The start of the book is jaw-droppingly violent and the killings continue on in this grisly style. It is captivating, violent, gory, and gruesome. Sveistrup plotted this one out with a sure hand.
Book Series In Order » Authors »
Any issues with the book list you are seeing? Or is there an author or series we don’t have? Let me know!
The Chestnut Man is one of the best mystery thrillers I’ve ever read. The Netflix series called the same name is excellent. I tried to find a way to contact Mr. Sveistrup to ask if he plans on writing more novels but couldn’t figure out if he still works with a publishing company. I hope one day he’ll write another book.
Chesnut man was a great read. Just loved all the twists and turns. And the characters, Thuli and Hess, with all their issues.
Watched the Killing. Brilliant and I don’t like subtitles. Bought the chestnut man, completely gripped, can’t wait to read more