Annette Werner and Jeppe Kørner are partners in Copenhagen’s police department. Jeppe, after a failed romantic relationship, has taken a leave of absence and is recovering on Bornholm, an island. When two parts of the same body which was sawed in half are found in Copenhagen, Annette’s inquiries take her to Bornholm where she enlists her partner’s assistance. Coincidentally, a mutual friend, Esther, is also on the island researching the life of an anthropologist about whom she is writing a book.

This is the fifth in the Kørner and Werner series; it is the second I have read. I really like this author’s writing and particularly the main characters. This is a Nordic noir novel, so it is characteristically a bit dark. With a clever plot, good character development, it is a well written, fast read; I couldn’t put it down. It is quite suspenseful, full of on-the-mark observations of life and aging and I really liked the literary device of parts of the story being revealed through historical letters.

Although one of a series, this can work as a standalone. However, the characters are so enjoyable, I would suggest going back and reading some of the prior books.

Having read the four books of this series that have been translated to English, I am truly sorry to see the series draw to a close! I have so enjoyed the wonderful, complex characters, the relationship between the two detectives, and the plots filled with surprises. The Sanctuary, as each of the other books in the series, can be read as a stand-alone, so don't let anything stand in the way of your reading this book (although a gruesome murder is at the root of the case for those who wish to avoid such things).

In Copenhagen, Anette Werner is serving as the head of Violent Crimes within the police department while her partner Jeppe Korner is on a leave of absence on the island of Bornholm for the winter. While investinating a gruesome murder, Werner finds that several leads point to the very island where Korner is trying to get away from it all. As you can expect of two people who have worked together for so long, Anette reaches out to Jeppe and asks him to look into one of the leads. The more each of them discover, the more a long-rooted mystery on the island seems to hold the key to the answers they seek. Can they figure it out before the savage killer strikes again?

A story within the story is writer Esther de Laurenti, also on the island, who is writing the biography of a female anthropologist. The notes she goes through in her research, unbeknownst to her, contain clues to the island mystery.

An intriguing read! I look forward to seeing what Ms Engberg writes next.

My thanks to Gallery/Scout Press for permitting me to read an ARC of the book via NetGalley. The book is scheduled for publication on 2/7/23. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and are freely given.

When an abandoned old suitcase is found in Copenhagen, it contains half of a human body. Detective Anette Werner is called in to start the investigation and since a clue leads to the island of Bornholm, where old partner Jeppe Korner is on leave due to a broken heart, Anette calls on him to help her figure this one out. Katrine Engberg’s series with these two detectives has wonderful characters that I have followed for years. These two are now on the trail of several men who are missing, and a killer who is still out there. A terrific ending, I never saw it coming. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for my copy of the Sanctuary.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC of The Sanctuary.
This book is the fifth book in the series but can be a standalone.
A suitcase is found with a body inside of it, the identity is yet to be determined.
Detective Anette Werner is in charge of identifying the victim and finding the killer.
This is a story of lots of twists and turns. Keeps you on the edge of your seat while changing your mind about who may have done it throughout the book.

4 Nordic slow-burn stars

I have really enjoyed this series and I’m a bit sad that this seems to be the conclusion. I’m hoping the second book is translated so there might be one more to read.

The series features a pair of detectives – Korner and Werner – and this author does a great job of character development along with storytelling. Korner is currently on leave from the police, working as a lumberjack on an island called Bornholm.

The opening scene is quite grisly, and police find half of a body in a suitcase abandoned in Copenhagen. Werner is placed in charge of the investigation and she’s really missing her partner Korner. Who is the man in the suitcase? There are a surprising number of missing men to track down. Strangely enough, many clues in the case lead to Bornholm. Korner and Werner begin to work together in an unofficial capacity.

There’s another storyline with Esther de Laurenti, she’s appeared in the other books, and she’s writing a biography of an anthropologist on Bornholm as well. As these books often do, soon the paths cross for everyone and there’s a web of deception, danger, and missing money on the island.

Similar to the opening scene, the ending of this one had me on tenterhooks. I thought I might know one reason why the series was ending as a main character’s life hangs in the balance. A bit of a slow-burn but well worth the read for me!

Wow! This is one of the best police procedural crime novels that I have read in a long time. Character driven, with fully developed, engaging characters, this novel grabbed me from the first page and barreled along at a breakneck pace with edge-of-your-seat tension, and multiple unexpected twists. This is the first Katrine Engberg novel I have read but it certainly won't be the last. Highly recommended!

The Sanctuary by Katrine Engberg

I've now read all four of the books in this Scandinavian five book series that were translated to English. The characters of Jeppe Kørner and Anette Werner had me glued to the series despite the gruesomeness of the crimes in each book. We spend so much time in their heads and I love it. Jeppe, so very sensitive, with a heart that's broken too many times. Anette, a strong woman who can be like a bull stomping through a china cabinet, often saying the wrong thing, pretty sure she shouldn't have said it, but shrugging and trudging on through life. Jeppe, tugging at my heartstrings, Anette, making me laugh. What a team they have make. Jeppe repulsed by Anette's crudeness, Anette shaking her head at Jeppe's touchiness to anything out of place or not quite right. Together they make an awesome team and they truly do care about each other.

But, for now, Jeppe is on leave from the police force, living on the island of Bornholm for the winter. Working as a lumberjack has been good for Jeppe. He's made a friend in the housebound elderly widower who Jeppe gladly watches over. Jeppe's dear friend Esther de Laurenti is on the island too, as she is working on a book about a late female anthropologist.

Anette is leading an investigation into a severed corpse and that investigation leads her to Bornholm. She's feeling great pressure handling this first case on her own. No wonder that since Jeppe is in Bornholm that Anette recruits him for some off the books investigation. And Jeppe has no trouble jumping right back into the saddle. This is a really good way to end the series if this is the end of the series but if Jeppe and Anette have more books in the future, I'll be there for them.

Thank you to Gallery Books, Gallery/Scout Press, and NetGalley for this ARC.

"From internationally bestselling author Katrine Engberg, the series that is a "gripping addition to the Scandinavian crime fiction pantheon" (Oprah Daily) comes to a stunning conclusion as Jeppe Kørner and Anette Werner rush to untangle a long-simmering mystery before a brutal killer strikes again.

Jeppe Kørner, on leave from the police force and nursing a broken heart, has taken refuge on the island of Bornholm for the winter. Also on the island is Esther de Laurenti, a writer working on a biography on a female anthropologist with a mysterious past and coming to terms with her own crushing sense of loneliness in the wake of a dear friend’s death. When Jeppe lends a helping hand at the island’s local sawmill, he begins to realize that the island may not be the peaceful refuge it appears to be.

Back in Copenhagen, Anette Werner is tasked with leading the investigation into a severed corpse discovered on a downtown playground. As she follows the strange trail of clues, they all seem to lead back to Bornholm. With an innocent offer to check out a lead, Jeppe unwittingly finds himself in the crosshairs of a sinister mystery rooted in the past, forcing him to team up with Anette and Esther to unravel the island’s secrets before it’s too late.

With her signature "unforgettable characters and brilliant plot twists" (Kathy Reichs, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Katrine Engberg weaves a satisfying and white-knuckled finale to her Korner and Werner series that is a modern classic of Scandinavian noir."

When you need to remove yourself in an island refuge, you know things are about to go down.

I'm a fan of Katrine Engberg because of her intriguing characters and clever plotting. I love spending time in Copenhagen, and in this case a remote island. Not as dark as some other Scandinavian authors, and I appreciate that. Very satisfying resolution to this one.

This has been a consistent series. Kørner and Werner are likable and capable and I’ve enjoyed following their personal lives along with their cases. As the fifth volume (although I don’t believe that the second one has been translated into English yet), readers are already familiar with the characters. This case is as gruesome as their previous procedurals, involving half a corpse inside a suitcase. The red herrings work really well, since even the victim’s identity is unknown to the detectives. I didn’t enjoy this one as much, though, because Kørner is not officially with the police anymore, but has taken a leave of absence and is doing something else now. Of course, in a coincidence that seems implausible, this new case happens right where he’s now living so he’s still involved. I liked Ditte, the local cop working with Werner, but I still missed the interaction between her and Kørner. I also found the plot too slow. The case relates to events that happened in the past, and Esther de Laurenti, Kørner’s friend, is reading some old letters relating to the action. These are too descriptive and full of details, which distracted me from the plot. There are also some passages from a book that Kørner reads with his neighbor and I guess they showed the isolation that he feels but were completely unrelated. I liked the resolution to the case, as well as the final twist, which was truly unexpected but, unfortunately, this won’t be my favorite volume in the series.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Gallery Books, Gallery/Scout Press!

This is my favorite Katrine Engberg novels yet. She shows amazing appreciation for human kindness and compassion for loneliness, even in a book that begins with someone being viciously sawed in half. Her wide cast of characters are complex and realistic, leaving you certain of who the murderer is during one chapter and then making you second-guess yourself in the next. Relatively slow paced for a crime novel, which is just my taste; it walks the line between "crime thriller" and "noir" quite well.

What an opening! Someone getting sawed in half while still alive. Yes, that grabbed my attention. As usual, I enjoyed the working/friendly relationship between Jeppe and Anette and all their humanness and flaws. There are plenty of turns throughout the book, and I wasn’t really sure until the end how it was going to shake out. It did get a little long and dragged out, but it was still a good read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Sanctuary.

The Danish island of Bornholm will not give up its secrets easily. A discarded suitcase filled with half a human body, and where the victim was sawed in half while still alive, is not what Detective Anette Werner expected to deal with, especially not as the lead detective, since her partner, Jeppe Korner, is on extended leave playing lumberjack on the island of Bornholm. However, Jeppe's presence proves useful, when the police learn that the suitcase came from an antique shop on Bornholm, and Annette asks Jeppe to talk to the proprietors to find out who purchased the suitcase.

Following the funeral for her roommate, Esther de Laurenti accompanies her friend Jeppe back to Bornholm, where she plans to meet Ida Dybris, the daughter of Margrethe Dybris, an anthropologist, whom is an icon of Esther's and whose biography Esther hopes to write. Ida's brother Nikolaj has been minding the family home, although he is nowhere to be found at the moment. Margrethe's home is filled with and decorated with letters, postcards and other correspondence she had received and saved over decades.

Jeppe is busy enough sawing trees during the day and checking in on his elderly neighbor, Orla, at night, but Annette will enlist him in helping her investigate her unknown murder victim and Esther will enlist his assistance in trying to discover the whereabouts of Ida's brother Nikolaj. Not surprisingly, given that it is a small island and many residents have lived there for decades, there are potential connections among possible persons of interest in these investigations. Margrethe's letters will also provide clues to the history of some of the island's inhabitants.

The story has an interesting cast of characters. There are plenty of surprises in the book, with clues seeming to point in one direction before the author throws in a twist. "The Sanctuary" is well worth reading.

The Sanctuary starts with a man being sawn in half and only picks up from there. From Copenhagen to the isolated island of Bornholm, Korner and Werner, who planned to be working separately, find themselves part of the same mystery and on the trail of several missing men and a killer who could strike again at any moment. An atmospheric procedural that will leave you guessing to the very end.

This book, the fifth in the series, begins with Danish police investigator Jeppe Korner on leave from the Copenhagen department and his partner, Anette Werner - and passing the time working in a sawmill on the nearby island of Bornholm while he tries to recover from losing the love of his life. Meanwhile, Anette is investigating the gruesome murder of a man who apparently died while being sawed in half lengthwise; one half has turned up in a discarded suitcase. The first obstacle, though, is identifying the body - which probably would be easier if they could locate his missing half. Also on the island, writer Esther de Laurenti is staying in the home of Ida Dybris, who has invited Esther to pen the biography of her late mother Margrethe, a noted anthropologist.

As might be expected, links begin to emerge between Anette's investigation and what's happening on the island, which means Anette must turn to Jeppe for help - which, at least at first, he's reluctant to provide. But even his surface digging forces him to realize that the island - and the people he works for and with - hold many secrets that some will go any lengths to keep that way. Following the story was a little hard for me just because there are a few too many characters for my mind to keep straight (even though I take notes along the way), but by the end I was "with it" enough to have enjoyed the whole thing just as I did the others in the series I've read (everything pretty much got sorted except for the meaning of the title). The ending wraps things up with a couple of surprises - one of which makes me look forward to the next book. Till then, I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review this one. Well done once again!

This is the fifth and FINAL installment of Katrine Engberg's brilliant series centered around Jeppe Kørner and Anette Werner. The second book was actually never translated to English (as far as I can tell), but I have read the previous three English translations in the series. You don't need to, they can all be read as stand-alones, but I do think that familiarity with the characters and their histories adds something to the story.

In The Sanctuary, Anette is the lead on an investigation into a gruesome murder — a body has turned up sawn in half, stuffed inside a pair of suitcases. Jeppe is taking some time off, working as a lumberjack on a secluded island, but of course he will still be roped into the search for the killer by his pesky partner. Our girl Esther is tangentially involved yet again, poor thing! Maybe her life will calm down after this book?

I found this (and all the books in this series, actually) story to be instantly engrossing and easy to read, a lovely example of Nordic noir. It's not too explicit as far as gore and violence is concerned, and though I guessed some of the reveals in this book, others were a surprise. The characters are vibrant and relatable, and I am sad to see their series come to an end!

Thank you to Gallery/Scout Press, Katrine Engberg, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC!

Two police partners reunited in solving a brutal murder is the basis of Katrine Engberg’s’s latest mystery. A man’s body has been severed in two by a saw-like instrument and abandoned in suitcases. The source of the brutal act is an Island community filled with dark secrets from past and present, complicating the discovery of both the victim and the murderer(s). Eliminating possible candidates is the only way though tedious at times. The pace, however, picks up finally and the reader along with the detectives rush to a conclusion filled with twists and revelations.

This book was just ok for me. It’s part of a series but can be read as a standalone. I had read the prior book but I think there are more before that. Anette and Jeppe are partners but Jeppe is on a leave of absence and working at some sort of logging company on a remote island for some reason. When a body is found, it ties back to where he happens to be so he gets pulled into the investigation, like it or not. You also get a secondary storyline of a lady named Esther writing a biography on a recently deceased woman and some chapters are told via letters the woman had written.

The murder investigation was pretty good and there were some surprises as Anette and team try to figure out what happened and who the victim even is. There was some mystery with this but when all was revealed I couldn’t really figure out the victim’s intentions or the timing around it. I don’t know if it was just the Scandinavian names but I also felt like there were a lot of characters who were sometimes hard to keep straight. I wasn’t sure the secondary storyline was even all that necessary though the author tied everything together nicely at the end.

Overall, ok read but wasn’t my favorite. I’m not sure why it was titled “the Sanctuary”- I guess maybe the island setting was supposed to be a sanctuary for Jeppe? Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of The Sanctuary.

I've been reading this series from the beginning so I was pleased my request was approved.

In the third book in the series, we find Jeppe Kørner on leave from the police and Anette Werner spearheading an investigation involving an extremely violent murder.

As the case progresses and becomes more bizarre, Werner enlists her former partner's aid, who has taken refuge on the island of Bornholm for the winter.

At the same time, a writer named Esther de Laurenti, is working on a biography on a female anthropologist with a mysterious past and struggling with the recent death of a dear friend.

Naturally, Jeppe finds himself personally entangled in the case and as he delves deeper, he finds himself in trouble once again, the complete opposite of the peace he was seeking.

The murder mystery is actually pretty straightforward but bogged down with suspects, too much exposition from Esther's POV as she does research on the female anthropologist and the runaround the locals give Jeppe and Anette.

Normally, I enjoy reading about the detectives' pounding the pavement, interviewing suspects, witnesses and locals, and interacting with their colleagues and the coroner, but I felt the mystery was bare bones and bogged down with too much filler and subplots including the stolen money and the cult-y church.

The murder itself is kind of weak and the biggest question I had was: Why did the victim wait until now to tell his friend what he did years ago?

Jeppe is his usual stoic self, and Anette is her usual, sort of abrasive self, though becoming a mother has sort of softened her edges.

I just wished Anette didn't rely so heavily on her male partner; Jeppe solves the mystery while Anette is still catching up.

Why can't she figure it out on her own?

I'm not sure what the title refers to - the island?

Overall, The Sanctuary wasn't bad, but the narrative lacked urgency, suspense, and it was bogged down with too much exposition, especially from Esther's perspective.

I raced through this one as I was already familiar with Anette and Jeppe and as it featured a dead guy in a suitcase, what's not to like? Lots of great plot twists as of course Engberg knows how to yank at our heartstrings and throw in red herrings! Loved the letters and the settings as I need to travel vicariously as I'd rather not actually see dead bodies! I look forward to more of her work as well!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!