It’s quite a while since we at Cafethinking enjoyed Heidi Amsinck’s first Jensen novel, My Name is Jensen. We missed out on book 2, because we weren’t paying attention, and now episode 3, Back from the Dead, is upon us. I’m usually a bit of a completist when it comes to series, and wondered whether missing book 2 would be a problem. The answer is a mix of yes and no. Something obviously Went Down in book 2, The Girl in the Photo, or else what would be the point? Amsinck doesn’t recap for us, so we are left wondering exactly what it is that Gustav did that may or may not have been forgiven by a bunch of bullies. But generally speaking Back from the Dead gives us enough that is familiar or new. We remember Jensen and Henrik: a pair with plenty of chemistry but, these days, not so much biology or physics. We meet the charismatic barista Liron once more too: he gets all the best lines. And we have a mystery that keeps us involved with some scenes full of tension. It’s all you want from a thriller.

I remember not especially liking either Jensen and Henrik and I’m not sure that either has improved with age. Henrik is particularly misanthropic. He uses police resources to monitor Jensen’s new relationship, about which he’s both suspicious and jealous. He is in a terrible relationship himself: his wife’s fed up with him and although he seems to manage some self-awareness through imagining his wife’s reactions to things, he doesn’t do anything with that knowledge. He’s awful to most of his colleagues and not for any real reason either…but things change a bit when he is allocated a new sidekick, Tone, who is all about order and efficiency and whom we should all find rather tiresome except she is fabulous. Henrik thinks she has been paired with him out of the spite of his boss, which may or may not be true.

The whole Tone thing makes me think that Amsinck is deliberately messing with us. Much of what makes this series stands out is that it is interested in what makes its characters tick, even when some of them are pretty awful. I don’t think it can be just me who finds Jensen and Henrik individually appalling, together unappealing but still convincing. Add to that two new characters we’re not sure about: Jensen’s new boyfriend, Bro, and organised crime boss Kofoed. In trying to work out these two, we’re reliant on the very different investigative tactics used by both Jensen and Henrik.

Amsinck herself now lives in the UK, having been brought up in Denmark, and these novels are originally written in English. We cover a lot of very good fiction in translation, but there is something about Amsinck’s use of British English idiom that makes us feel right at home on the streets of Copenhagen. There’s a lot of exploration of ‘the other’ in this novel – whether through Esben’s views on immigration, Aziz’s family, Kofoed’s wish ‘to be accepted and respected by his own people’, or just Liron’s assumption that Jensen can be identified as not-Danish, and the use of language that feels somehow quirky and unique helps us immerse in this theme.

Like the first Jensen novel, Back from the Dead poses a bit of a paradox. You come for a taut thriller that doesn’t skimp on the body count. You stay despite not liking the main characters. But you want them to succeed – you really want them to succeed. And while you’re observing, you’re thinking about bouncing around Denmark’s capital with ice creams. A cracking combination.

Thanks to Muswell Press for the review copy and to Anne Cater for the blog tour invitation.