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NEXT OF KIN is #4 in an established series featuring full time journalist and part-time sleuth Dicte Svendsen, but, as far as I can work out, the first of the titles available in English from this popular Danish crime fiction writer.

NEXT OF KIN raises some of the issues that have surfaced in

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Western countries affected by an influx of immigrants from Islamic countries. Among the issues raised are fears of terrorism, problems of assimilation, and cultural complexities.

The thing that puzzles Dicte Svendsen when she is sent a video of a beheading by a sabre-wielding person in black is why she was selected to receive it. Later communications from the person confirm that the answer is in Dicte's own past. When the first victim is found she realises where she has seen the tattoo on his arm before. And what events have triggered the killer to act now, if the original events occurred so long ago?

The sub-plot focussing on a psychologist whose daughter was recently killed by a drunken hit and run driver is an interesting one too. The driver serves only 4 months of his sentence which to the girl's father seems far too short. An organisation called United Victims is calling for the re-instatement of the death penalty, not just in Denmark. NEXT OF KIN is also about crimes, particularly sexual ones, where the perpetrators are never found, but where the victims continue to suffer.

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