A country house in a blizzard, full of old Oxford University friends brought back together, makes a good setting for solving a murder. The characters are charming but annoyingly over privileged, the twists and turns have a few red herrings and it’s quite old fashioned whilst being set in current times. It’s really quite difficult to know what to make of it but I wanted to hear how it finished.
The narrator of the audiobook was suitably impressive with a wide repertoire of accents. His Scottish accent makes you think it’s being read by David Tennant.
Thanks to Netgalley for this book in exchange for a review.

This was a fabulous cosy crime novel, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie or Richard Osman.
A light hearted locked room mystery that I would definitely recommend.

When I first started reading this book I thought it was a run of the mill story but it started picking up pace and I was hooked!! Loved it!! The descriptive writing was a joy to read and made it easier for me to imagine the scenes. Love Helle! ;)

This read was amazing. It was everything that I look for in an amazing murder mystery. It kept me guessing right up til the very end.

One of my favourite genre of audiobooks for making me want to pop in my ear pods is a murder mystery and this one has certainly had me listening at every opportunity. Overall the narrator is very engaging and he did a good job of bringing the characters to life as well as supplying lots of dramatic pauses to add to the tension.
The story itself is a locked room, cosy murder mystery. A group of old university friends are invited to a weekend party in a remote Northumbrian country Manor House. Following the revelation of some surprise shocking news at dinner, a body is discovered the following morning. Cue a huge northern snowstorm, dwindling supplies and the possibility of a murderer amongst their number, and Torben Helle, art historian, finds himself delving into an investigation. With each of them harbouring enough secret reasons to be a motive for murder, no one can be truly trusted, and I was certainly kept guessing for a considerable time until the big reveal when the pieces started to fall into place.
This story will definitely appeal to fans of a good old fashioned Murder Mystery!
With thanks to NetGalley and Profile Books Audio, Viper for an advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for a review.

Anthony invited his old university friends to his mansion where the snow traps them with no external communication or way of escape. Anthony does but was it suicide or has he been murdered? Torrent decides he must work out what has happened and why?

Well written and well narrated novel (I listened to the audiobook). Enjoyed this bunch of characters trapped together, not knowing if one of them is a murderer. Are they being played or was it suicide? Well paced and well worth the listen, enjoy.

4⭐️

This is a classic whodunit but with a heavy character focus. The majority of the book was focused around the characters’ relationships and history.
I enjoyed the story and I was surprised by the killer in the end.

Thank you Netgalley and Viper Books for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was quite an enjoyable listen and it worked for me. The narration suited the story. This is not a skandi=noir book rather a cosy locked in mystery. I was put off initially when it referred to in the blurb as would suit fans of certain authors, and one of them I absolutely could not got on with, but for me this was so much better.

Fun listen and it worked.

I was given an advance copy by the publishers and netgalley but the review is entirely my own.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book as much as I did. It's a thrope that has been done to death (no pun intended) a group of friends stuck together in a big house and one of them is murdered. A big storm hits and non of them can leave.

Usually these novels all follow the same formula but Jensons take on the theme was quite unique. I was invested in the storyline and the fate of all the characters.

Full of twists this book had me thuroughly hooked. I look forward to reading more by Oscar Jenson in the future.

Helle and Death is a locked room murder mystery, which ticks all the boxes for the fans of the genre. While the plot may seem a bit contrived, it is entertaining enough, with plenty of red herrings to keep the reader’s attention. I listened to some of the book on audio and and found the narration to be quite enjoyable.

🎧Audio Book Review🎧

Helle & Death
Oskar Jensen

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

This was a brilliantly twisty and intriguing "locked room" mystery that had me guessing right to the very end.

As a group of Uni friends meet up again after a few years, there are tensions abound - with hidden secrets from the past and also from the present.
After a first evening of fine food and drinking - the host is found dead in his bed, next to a suicide note!
As the heavy snow isolates them with no phones, suspicions arise the investigations (and allegations) begin....

I love mysteries like this, where there are a limited number of suspects/characters and we get to really get to know each of them bit by bit.
Here, there were some great stories from their time at uni and it was easy, from these tales, to see what dynamics had built up for the group.

The whole case was really cleverly worked through and the layers well presented and built upon.
It was quite a complex one and when it came to the reveals, I found myself thinking back to the evening events and wondering if I might have spotted anything sooner.
However, I love a mystery that has me racing on to find the answers as I have no clue who to trust!

I wonder if we might see more from this group (or some of) these characters in future books?

A great first read for me from this author - really enjoyed this and would definitely be looking out for what comes next....


💕Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for my ARC copy - this is my honest review 💕

As a fellow Dane, it’s a pleasure to see a new Danish writer on the scene. I really enjoyed this debut introducing us to Torben Helle. That it was on the cosier side of the Nordic Noir spectrum was unexpected but by no means disappointing. It’s wry in its humour without being distractingly funny. And this closed-room mystery, set in a snowed-in manor with a uni reunion is as much a study of friendships and youthful relationships and their endurance over time as the murder itself. I particularly enjoyed the translated Danish-isms.

Classic whodunnit. A group of former university friends are invited to one of their houses (mansion) in a remote part of Northumbria. The snow is falling. The atmosphere is weird, it’s been ten years since they were all together.
Their host announces he has a terminal illness. The following morning he is dead. The telephone lines are down, there’s no electricity.
Trust and mistrust. Twists and turns. Suspicions everywhere, who is lying, who is telling the truth?
It was very atmospheric and I loved it. The characters were a mixed bunch and grew as the book went on.
The narrator was great.

Really well written mystery. The narrator does a fantastic job of separating the voices and giving the story a real depth. I thoroughly enjoyed the story that moved at a great pace. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me access to an early copy of this audio book.

3.5 ⭐️ This is a cosy-style mystery that harks back to the Golden Age crime novels of Christie et al.

A group of old friends, all Oxford graduates, are brought together by one of their number for a holiday in a remote mansion that is subsequently cut off due to a snowstorm and power cut. Anthony, their host, a reclusive tech millionaire, announces that he is terminally ill and that he had wanted to bring them together one last time.

But are they truly friends or frenemies? As tensions build there is soon much more than money at stake and they find themselves reevaluating who they can trust and how well they really know each other at all.

I listened to this as an audiobook and whilst I enjoyed both the story and the narration, both were a little slow for my preference. That being said, it’s just perfect for this time of year.

With thanks to NetGalley, the author and Profile Books Audio for a review copy.

The characters were good fun and I'm inspired by the idea of university friends reuniting. And it's definitely cosy, although there's a good segment of creeping dread.

However, the motive is overblown and based on erroneous thinking, nursed for something like a decade. It's so unsatisfactory.

And the outlandish "twist solution" was so well-telegraphed that I assumed that was how the crime was supposed to appear, so spent the rest of the novel looking for how the frame-up was done. Meaning, I was twiddling my thumbs through the denouement, waiting for the person I supposed to be the sleuth to explode it. It did get exploded but the way it was written seems to imply the reader should've been taken in, rather than it being obvious from the beginning.

Also, there's a second red herring that isn't exposed until the denouement but is obvious from when the characters are first introduced before the murder. It furnishes a couple of obfuscations but leaving it to the end feels like an insult to the reader's intelligence.

On diversity:
Several of the characters are not white but I found it impossible to remember — apart from Laleh from Iraq – until the author dropped in the next racialised descriptor, e.g. braids/dreadlocks and reminding us someone had servants in Hong Kong. For example, there's a female uniformed police inspector from a rough upbringing who's black and attends a charismatic church, and there are scenes where I cannot distinguish her from Laleh or Tom or Wilson because their differences don't influence their speech.

This is a well-paced, absorbing read with character studies gauged just right at the opening of the novel. Yes, a proclivity for the dramatic pause does tend to dominate Gunnar Cauthery's narration, but he handles accents and character idiosyncrasies skilfully and his bold performance style makes this great for listening to all-at-once.

'Helle & Death' goes down easy; it's a hearty modern winter mystery. Oskar Jensen has pitched just the right touch of classical motifs against a contemporary setting, allusions to that Detection Club timelessness ensuring that the modern elements don't hinder the atmosphere.

My hesitancy regarding the text would be in relation to its slapdash denigration of gender inequality. The novel's teeming with statements declaiming women's subordinate position and marginalised voices, but every time it feels like the author's writing it with his arm twisted behind his back. It's all very heavy on the masculine. I wondered at the relative lack of attention paid to female characters' motivations (for example, Ruth's religiosity). Compounding this is the sexual objectification of the protagonist's two sexual conquests Frances and Layla.

All female characters here feel like they've each been drawn with very specific colours from the crayon tin: give one a strong accent; make one a person of colour; make one an artist; give one a doctoral thesis and one a law degree. These are all purely functional character facets. There's no exploration of the female characters outside of their dramatic function as each comes into play.

This kind of tokenistic characterisation really comes to typify the novel: 'much as he hated the phrase, he had recently started trying to "check his privilege".'

My thanks to Viper Audio for a digital audiobook to review.

3.5* - being the audiobook version, I found I often lost track of things, and I ended up having to restart the book. For a long time I thought this was going to be 3*, but the ending helped round it up a bit. I did kind of guess whodunnit, and it did put me in mind if one of Christie’s books (that’s actually name checked in this story), because of that. Overall a good story, and I’d check out others by the author.

I received a free ARC copy of this via NetGalley and the publishers in return for an unbiased review.

Helle and Death is the debut novel by Oskar Jensen.

I loved the blurb for this book and was excited to be given the chance to get an ARC.

Anthony, a tech entrepreneur, is hosting the tenth anniversary reunion of his university friends at his remote Northumbrian mansion.

On their first night together, one of them appears to commit suicide - but was it really suicide? To compound the situation, heavy snow cuts them off from the outside world, which ups the ante.

It becomes quite clear early on that not everyone is as close friends as they once were at university, with their lives moving in different directions. Resentments and secrets are uncovered as Torben and the group begin to investigate the apparent suicide.

The audiobook is expertly narrated by Gunnar Cauthery.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Profile Books Audio, / Viper, for making the e-audio-ARC available to me in exchange for a fair and honest and review.

A golden age style country house murder mystery set in modern times is always tricky to pull off - mainly because of the existence of internet and smart phones. But Oskar Jensen has done a very credible job in this nicely written whodunnit. Torben Helle (pronounced 'Hell-Uh') is a Danish art historian who has been invited to spend a weekend at the stately home of his university friend, and now tech millionaire, Anthony Dunn. Helle is reunited with all his old uni friends, because Dunn has gathered everyone to make an announcement. And after making his fortune from electronics, Dunn is now convinced they emit dangerous rays hence no connectivity. Then everyone is snowed in - of course! - and soon someone is dead. Now Torben and his friends feel obliged to investigate the crime, whilst also facing the uncomfortable likelihood that one of them must be the perpetrator.

It's all classic locked room mystery stuff, unashamedly so, and very well done. It's cosy crime - no gritty reality here - but not trivial or flimsy. The plot is rather clever and I liked the solution. Helle is a likeable central character, although I found some of the others a bit irritating or cliched. But it's all good fun.

It works fairly well as an audiobook although sometimes it was hard to pick up immediately when the viewpoint character changed. The story is fairly linear though and easy enough to follow and I liked the narrator, particularly when he swore in Danish. Although there aren't many Danish words in it, I always like audiobooks for enabling me to hear the correct pronunciation of foreign words - much easier than reading them and knowing I'm 'saying' them wrongly in my head.

If you enjoy Christie-style murder mysteries and cosy crime, this is a great novel to read. It's a crowded genre with plenty of choice, but this is definitely one of the better ones I've come across this year so it's a worthy addition to the reading list of crime fans.