This was sounded so interesting and it lived up the hype. Well drawn characters and a good mystery. A wonderful book. I look forward to reading more from Nordbo!

The first book I have read set in Greenland. Quite violent and gory in places but a really well written crime mystery. I enjoyed it and would happily read others by the same author.

I am sorry to say that I only managed to read one third of the book before I finally gave up. The story switches between decades and is almost impossible to follow. What started with so much anticipation sadly fizzled out.

I don’t recommend this book but thank Bookouture and Netgalley for this advance copy which I received in exchange for my unbiased review.

One star

This is a great Scandinavian thriller that draws you in from the start. The story jumps between the present day and 1973, In the present day Matt Cave who has recently moved from Denmark to Nuuk in Greenland to work for the local paper as a journalist, running away because of the death of his girlfriend and their unborn child in a car accident. He's asked to cover a story of a presumed Viking mummy that has been discovered in the ice but it turns out to be more than he would ever of thought of , What starts of as an amazing discovery soon reveals similarities to some murders that happened in 1973 but someone wants the story hushed up. During the investigation he gets involved with a recently released murderer, Tapaarnaq a mysterious woman who has her own scores to settle.
You can not help but draw similarities to Stieg Larsson’s books but for fans of this kind of writing you will not be disappointed.

This review was originally posted on my blog 'Trails of Tales'

You have a good lung capacity, right?

I hope you do

Because you are going to be holding your breath for a

Long

Long

Time

Until you reach the last page of ‘The Girl without Skin’.
I always felt that the nuances of a story are lost in translation.

That is what I discovered when I re-read the books that were originally published in my native language Bengali, in a more widely known language like Hind or English.

It is….just …not the same. Something always feels lacking.

Now since I am not familiar with Danish, I obviously cannot make a conclusion but I really do feel that Charlotte Barslund must have done a prrtty good job at translation because the language is so detailed and full of awe-inspiring subtleties.

It is hard to imagine that there would be something that is not encapsulated in the English version.

However, once you read this story threaded by Mads Peder Nordbo, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the original version does have something more.

And while we are on the subject of language, let me mention this.

The story begins and ends with the word skin. As if the author gave us a preamble and a reminder of the heart of his story.

After all

A skin is not just a body part

It is what covers all that is inside.

‘The Girl without a skin’ is a story centered in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, a town of 16000 residents surrounded by mountains and the sea.

Matthew Cave, a talented journalist haunted by the horrors in his past is assisgned to cover the the uncovering of a shriveled up Nordic viking mummy wrapped in fur.

It is set to become one of the greatest findings that might catapult all involved in this discovery to international fame.

It turns out though, international fame would have to wait.

The mummy….the extremely dead mummy

Disappears overnight.

You might ask, wasn’t anyone guarding the mummy.

A police personnel was.

And his body was found naked on the ice, flayed open, with most of his internal organs missing.

Gruesome much?

Put your seatbelts on my friends cause there is so much more of that.

So. Much. More

Against his better judgement, Matthew finds himself getting drawn into the mystery of the murder and disappearing mummy. More so when he finds out that in 1973 there were serial killings of similar nature that are still unsolved.

An outsider, Matthew has no inkling as to who can help him find the truth.

Our journalist thus decides to bestow his trust on the most unlikeliest candidate

Our Heroine or Anti-Heroine, Tupaarnaq

tatooed all over, completely bald and a suspect in the ongoing murder investigation.

Matthew finds himself in the possession of a diary, belonging to a detective who investigated the serial killings of 1973.

And so we are plopped into the middle of jumping timelines. The story of Matthew in 2014 and the story of Jakob in 1973. Woven through with exceedinly deft skills.

Stories with two different timelines do not always cut the mustard but Mads Peder Nordbo makes it work so well that the jumps feel more like effortless slips.

There is gore. Quite a lot of it.

There is abuse, greed, corruption, all of human vices at it’s worst. Personally, I always find it much harder to read of abuse (in any form) than gore.

But if you can handle all that and suspense thrillers make you as crazy excited as they make me

Then you have to read ‘The Girl without Skin’ by Mads Peder Nordbo and let all of its rawness seep under your skin.

ScandiNoir finally reaches that far Nordic outpost - Greenland! Graphic content, to be sure, but a nonetheless fascinating story.

I found this story confusing in parts, but i think that is me and my inability to remember all of the Danish and Greenland names.

The premise of the story is great - bodies being discovered as the ice melts due to global warming. With concurrent investigations into both these deaths and current deaths makes for an interesting read, though it must be said that the murders were particularly gruesome.

Having said this i do look forward to reading other books by this author.

Publisher's description of the book:
When a mummified Viking corpse is discovered on Greenland ice sheet, journalist Matthew Cave is sent out to report on the finding. The next day, the mummy has disappeared. The body of the police guard lies on the ice naked and flayed, echoing a gruesome series of unsolved murders from many years earlier. With no faith in the police, the only person Matthew dares to trust is a young Greenlandic woman who, at fourteen years old, was charged with killing her father in the same shocking manner. Nordbo has staked out a new frontier in Nordic Crime, setting his story against the forbidding beauty of Greenland.

**********************************

A warning to anyone who is interested in reading this book...the number of flayed, gutted, bodies rises during this book and some of the deaths are told in great detail, from the point of view of the person being gutted. This is not a book for the faint of heart with human death, seal death, incest and rape of young girls. I rarely read books with this much violence but I was interested in the "mystery" part of the book.

The book jumps between the present (2014) and 1973 as a reporter in the present, Matt, and a police officer in the past, Jakob, investigate bodies, deaths, and more, that may be connected. You will feel the cold, the wet, the dreariness of the Greenland area where the book takes place. As the book goes from one timeline to the other, it's easy to not realize exactly how much takes place in such a short time span, in each timeline. The is a lot of action packed into short amounts of time.

Both timelines have a huge number of characters and places, with very unfamiliar names, to me, so it was often hard to remember who was who and what was what. The story is complex and there is a lot to remember from one timeline to the next. I would like to have felt clearer about everything that happened yet I know that my preference for less gruesome crime descriptions and unfamiliarity with most names, may have influenced my ability to enjoy the book more. I did enjoy the characters, especially the police officer Jakob and would have liked to have known more about him.

I rated this book 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars. Thank you to Text Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to preview this book. Reading about Greenland was interesting. The story was a little confusing in spots. Still enjoyable and recommended.

My thanks to NetGalley for providing a Kindle copy of this book for me to read and impartially review

When a mummified Viking corpse is discovered on Greenland ice sheet, journalist Matthew Cave is sent out to report on the finding. The next day, the mummy has disappeared. The body of the police guard lies on the ice naked and flayed, echoing a gruesome series of unsolved murders from many years earlier. With no faith in the police, the only person Matthew dares to trust is a young Greenlandic woman who, at fourteen years old, was charged with killing her father in the same shocking manner.
This is the description provided NetGalley with regards to the book and it was enough to arouse my interest. Set in 2014 Matthew has arrived in Nuuk recovering from the loss of his Wife and unborn child in a car crash which left him with serious injuries, and finds himself thrust into investigating a cold case from 1973 which saw four men killed in almost identical grisly circumstances. He is helped by an heavily tattooed young woman recently released from prison for killing her entire family. Sound familiar by any chance, yes on the face of it the two main characters are somewhat similar to the brilliant 'Millennium Trilogy', and the heroine is every bit as feisty as Lisbeth Salander, but that aside the story more than stands on its own, and a gripping and gruesome at times story it is. This is a Greenland town full of terrible secrets, with corruption at the highest levels. Macabre and engrossing tense and at times the tension chills you as much as the descriptions of Greenland's bleak landscape and weather. Well written descriptive with a real sense of the characters and their surroundings, bleak and cold in every sense of the word, there are twist and turns some of which i am pleased to have guessed, some i did not but throughout totally engaging.
Hopefully this is is the start of a series.
Thoroughly recommended.

This is a good crime novel written in a Greenland setting. Matt Cave a journalist, is sent to report on an ancient Viking mummy that has been uncovered from a glacier. Along the way he uncovers a link to four brutal murders that were committed twenty years ago.

The Girl Without Skin is the first English translation of Danish author Mads Peder Nordbo. As the latest entrant to the "Scandi-Noir" genre it's certainly "Noir" with a vengeance with horrific deaths,plenty of violence and all kinds of other depravity thrown into the mix.
Matthew Cave is a Danish journalist based in Greenland and the tale begins as he heads towards a scoop seemingly of immense historical interest. Pretty soon it becomes obvious that all is not as it seems and the carnage begins. Running alongside the contemporary,set in 2014, narrative is the tale of a series of murders in the same town,Nuuk,in the 1970's. and their link to currents events.
Far from just a run of the mill murder mystery the tale involves high-level corruption, politics, Greenlandish culture, institutional abuse and much more. quite a mix but it works very well and for once the label ,"if you like Nesbo you'll love this" actually applies. Characters are well rounded and Cave is ably assisted by,amongst others,a feisty young woman,with more than a touch of Lisbeth Salander, just out of jail after serving time for killing her parents.
As well as Nesbo Norbo's grisly tale reminded me of the books of Richard Montanari, a favourite of mine,with it's touch of gothic horror and darkness. Norbo incidentally lives in Nuuk where the tourist board must be thrilled with the fame, or infamy, his bleak descriptions and dastardly deeds bring to their town.
An excellent book that while quite a grim read in places is a very entertaining and involving read.
Credit is also due to the translator, Charlotte Barslund for a great job well done.

Thanks to Mads Peder Nordbo, the publishers and Netgalley for the advance copy.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first book I have ever read that has been translated. While reading this book I could tell it had been translated as some parts didn’t quite make sense, but, it did not detract away from this book. There are a lot of Greenlandic names as this book takes place in Nuuk, Greenland. Those names took some getting used to and by the end of the book they were a breeze!

The story begins with Matthew Cave, a journalist who has sought out a new life in Nuuk; one where he doesn’t have to remember his pregnant wife. He gets called to go out and report on the uncovering of a Norseman (pre-Viking) mummy. Little does he know what he is about to stumble upon.

Slight spoiler alert: the mummy is not that of a Norseman, but of a recent murder.

Trigger warning. This book details sexual abuse in young girls. As the story progresses we find a link to this mummy and a few unsolved murders from years ago. Matthew meets Tupaarnaq, a young woman accused of killing her family (her time was served in prison), and together they dig deeper in to what is really going on. The mummy disappears and another is murdered as Matthew starts to investigate. The story begins to be told in 1973 and present day (2014) as Matthew believes the current murders are connected to the disappearance of police officer Jakob Pederson and a sex abuse ring he was investigating. I won’t delve any deeper as I don’t want to ruin the book for you!

Overall, I am giving this book a solid 4-star rating. It is a true Scandi crime novel and an alluring one at that. I could not put this down. Nordbo does a beautiful job at painting amazing details in the surrounding environment in this book as well, I felt as if I was in Greenland myself. I did predict the ending of the book, however, there is enough action going on to keep you happy even with the predictability. If you are a fan of crime novels this is a must read for you! The Kindle edition is out now and the paperback version will be released on June 11, 2019!

**REVIEW POSTED ON 1/8/19 AT 5:00AM PACIFIC TIME ON DONNASREADINGCHAIR.HOME.BLOG**
**REVIEW POSTED ON 6/6/19 AT 5:00AM PACIFIC TIME ON BOOKINTHEBAG.WORDPRESS.COM**

I am a big fan of the series "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," but I would refrain from really comparing these two as I had originally thought. Both are disturbing psychological thrillers, but "The Girl Without Skin" takes disturbing a step further with the intense background story that evolves throughout the book to explain the subsequent murders.

The story was somewhat slow to start as it introduced the characters and tried to weave the past and present together, but once it picked up, I got completely lost in the story and found myself wondering if any of the statistics from the book about child abuse were in any way accurate in Greenland. It has definitely spurred some interest in Greenland and its history and I'll definitely be reading additional books from this author/genre.

Caveat: THE GIRL WITHOUT SKIN, by Mads Peder Nordbo is not for the faint of heart, nor weak of stomach; there's quite a bit of gore, as well as child sexual abuse.

It is, however, a nearly perfect murder mystery, which is cleverly crafted along two timelines - one from the seventies and one from the present. Both time frames, many of the characters, and certainly the crimes, are interwoven in a delicate dance of past and present, all of which takes place in an icy Greenland town. It's a fast paced, tense, all engrossing story, which I read in two sittings.

Our protagonist, journalist Matt Cave, is himself living in a cave of grief, having recently lost his wife and unborn child in a horrible car accident. He is just damaged enough to make him interesting and garner compassion. He's often noted as reaching for his ring finger, to mindlessly play with a ring, which is no longer there. Definitely plays with your heart. He's a very likable character, and I look forward to reading more books in this series.

Nordbo writes like a poet, his words are beautifully constructed, and a pleasure to read. I found it fitting that Matt finds himself reading a bit of beautiful poetry, toward the end, which is a celebration of the beauty and the challenges of living in Greenland.

I noted a few translation issues, which could be construed as errors, but it's not difficult to look past them, given the extraordinary story. While Nordbo has written several books, this is his first to be translated into English; I look forward to reading more of his work.

Thank you NetGalley, Mads Peder Nordbo, and Text Publishing for the Kindle version of this book, in exchange for my honest review. It is very much appreciated.

In the first hundred plus pages I was really excited about this. I really enjoyed [book:Smilla's Sense of Snow|124509] this year which also dealt with the tensions between Indigenous Greenlandic people and the Danes who colonized them. I think Nordbo was very successful in the presentation of this - I just wish perhaps I could read it from the perspective of a Greenlandic author (note same scenario with Smilla's Sense of Snow).

I think there are maybe some gaps in the writing, in that I was often very confused as to how certain characters got themselves to certain places and into certain pickles. I also feel like there may have been too many players, maybe to manufacture the suspense of whoddunit, but this was annoying not suspensful.

With Scandinavian fiction we often here works compared to Stieg Larsson's three millenium novels. Smilla's Sense of Snow is quite similar, predates Larsson and in my mind doesn't get the attention it deserves (although it was adapted into a film). I would have been ok I think, had Tupaarnaq had only a passing resemblance to Lizbeth Salander - the tattoos, the attitude, and trouble always following her around. Unfortunately I think making her capable of hacking and wrongly accused of the crimes was just too much.

I didn't find either Matthew or Jakob well characterized, maybe because our time was split between their narrations in 2014 and 1973. But I feel like Matthew needed more attention on the page, other than his history of tragedy.

Kept me flipping pages, sometimes scratching my head, but flipping 'em pages none the less.

When a mummified Viking corpse is discovered in a crevasses out on the edge of an ice sheet, journalist Matthew Cave is sent to cover the story. The next day the mummy is gone, and the body of the policeman who was keeping watch is found naked and flayed—exactly like the victims in a gruesome series of murders that terrified the remote town of Nuuk in the 1970s.

As Matt investigates, he is shocked by the deprivation and brutal violence the locals take for granted. Unable to trust the police, he begins to suspect a cover-up. It’s only when he meets a young Inuit woman, Tupaarnaq, convicted of killing her parents and two small sisters, that Matt starts to realise how deep this story goes—and how much danger he is in.

I found myself riveted by this book. It was like a race to get thru it to find out the truth about the mummy and who had killed the policeman. However, this was not an easy read. There are some very dark themes, and manny readers may find them disturbing. It's a gritty and sombre crime novel that will not appeal to everyone. I do, however, recommend it to anyone who likes their crime realistic, yet grim.

A Nordic murder mystery set in Iceland, this is a grim tale of a grieving journalist who is sent to write about the discovery of a mummified corpse, discovered in the ice and thought to be c600 years old. The storyline then veers into murder of seals, people and child abuse and I found it to be a difficult read in many parts, partly due to the subject matter, partly to the translation and writing style and it does jump around a lot.

For lovers of the Nordic dark thriller, this is for you.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to preview.

Matthew Cave has suffered an unbearable personal tragedy. He isn't in a good place mentally, but as a journalist, work(he hopes) can distract him from his own dark thoughts( at least for a moment or two). When a mummified corpse is discovered in Greenland, he finds himself in an isolated town whose inhabitants hold a fair amount of secrets.
Most( well-written) murder mysteries are suspenseful, full of twists and turns, and keep me guessing whodunit and why. This was true in The Girl Without Skin and additionally, the setting is so remote and the unrelenting cold, snow, and ice make even the simplest things so much harder. What does the body of a Viking have to do with unsolved cold cases and current murders? The story is compelling but the murders are described in brutal and graphic detail which certainly won't appeal to every reader. This one was outside my comfort zone(because of the gore) and I wouldn't say it was an easy read, but I was engrossed enough to want to know how everything would come together and I wasn't disappointed once the author connected all the dots. This is the first book in a series and I am interested to see what comes next.
I received a DRC from Text Publishing through NetGalley.

Matthew Cave is assigned to report on a mummy suspected to be the first Viking found in Greenland. After the mummy disappears, and the police officer guarding it killed in a most horrific manner, Matthew investigates a story decades old based on the similar style of murder of four local men. The tale grows exponentially as he learns about the murders’ connections to child molestation, kidnapping, politics, and a mysterious, tattooed woman just released from prison. Secrets are revealed, crimes are solved, and living / dead are confirmed.

Nordbo writes a graphic, bones-laid-bare crime novel with the setting of Nuuk, Greenland as prominent as a main character. The Danish / Greenlandic tension is pushed and pulled throughout the story, with national politics and corruption affecting local affairs. Twists and turns abound as new evidence surfaces, but the main source of a policeman’s journal written during the earlier crimes takes the reader back in time for a more intimate feel. A major information dump at the end does its best to feel natural, coming from the appropriate characters. In any case, the tale is multi-layered, with storylines that converge for a revelatory denouement. I was fortunate to receive a digital copy from Text Publishing Company through NetGalley.