The spy story at its best.

His best so far.

Cool, intricate plotting ... excitement and applied violence ... exactly how entertainment should be written.

A cracking story.

Len Deighton's spy novels are so good they make me sad the Cold War is over.

Authentic thrills of chase and capture ... impressive.

Simply an unparalleled page-turner

Absolutely fantastic crime novel. The plot keeps you gripped, and you always end up wanting to read just one more page. Nerve-racking. Nail-biting. Thrilling. Hair-raising

Not all good scriptwriters can produce a detective story designed to be read rather than watched on TV. But Søren Sveistrup, the man responsible for The Killing, proves . . . that it can be done . . . The characters, the plot with its deep, eerie undercurrent of the unknown, and the intense, compelling manipulation of suspense are qualities reminiscent of The Killing

This nerve-racking debut novel has a brilliant plot . . .

A powerful portrait of two intriguing detectives who are here to stay . . .

Simply so well written, well constructed and suspenseful. I've read a lot of fantastic crime novels, but this is far and away the best I've read in a long time. . . . insanely suspenseful and gripping

Crime fiction of the highest quality - fascinating characters, great storytelling, and unbearable suspense. I absolutely loved it

Sveistrup is a skilled weaver of plot, able to surprise the reader and maintain a well-developed sense of pacing, tension and action. He keeps the reader hooked until the final page

The ingredients in this stew are familiar to everyone who reads crime novels. Sveistrup's great skill becomes apparent in the solid, complex plot, as well as in the pacing and impact that drives the reader onward page after page. The Chestnut Man is a demonstration of how a novel of this type should be sewn together. The result is incredibly thrilling!

While other writers come across as formulaic, Sveistrup's plot develops naturally, and he finds space amid the child abuse and harassment for enough injections of humanity that The Chestnut Man never turns into violence porn, a stumbling block for several of his Danish colleagues. The key is Thulin and Hess, the most promising pair of investigators in Nordic crime since Saga and Martin first met over a corpse on a bridge in 2011

Individual scenes in the narrative stand out knife-sharp in all their calculated evil. Their encounter with brutal reality nearly overwhelms those involved, and the reader is profoundly challenged by the novel's material. But you survive because you retain a clear sense that there must be a deep well of sorrow behind the crimes, and because the author depicts his cast of characters in such a nuanced way that you sympathise with the hard-pressed investigative team, the victims, and the person behind the terrible murders. Sveistrup keeps the reader gripped until the very end. This is professional writing in the very best sense, and I'm looking forward to more.

The Chestnut Man is an intensely gripping first novel that feels anything but debut-like. Seasoned crime fans with feel as though they're in very safe hands ... [Sveistrup] throws his hat into the ring with extreme professionalism and a talent for deploying his special tricks in precisely calibrated doses.

Praise for The Killing

Excellent . . . A shrewd mix of police procedural, political thriller and domestic drama

TV of the absolute finest quality . . . the writing shines