The Body on the Beach

This story takes place on The Wadden Islands in Northern Friesland (Germany) and is excellently translated from German.
DI Lena Lorenzen works for the CID in Kiel and is about to start her holiday on Amrum (the island she was born and raised on) with her childhood love Erick, with whom she only recently reconnected when she receives a call from her DSU. On Fohr, the neighbouring island, a 14-year-old girl has disappeared and he wants her on the case. It’s a delicate matter as the family belongs to a very strict Mennonite church and community. It’s the sister that left the island when she was 18 that reported the girl missing, not the parents. Those behave very hostile towards the authorities. Later, the girl is found with slit wrists on the beach but it’s clear that a third party is involved.

This is a well-constructed but complex story. The characters are well developed and realistic. They have problems and doubts and don’t always agree on procedure or lines of investigation, but Lena steers a tight ship and has the last word on those things. Usually, she’s right, as well. She has her own personal problems on the islands though. There’s her father with whom she hasn’t spoken in years that wants her forgiveness. Her island boyfriend may want to move their relationship up to the next level, as long-distance relations are far from ideal, but Lena is not quite ready for this. On top of that, a former one-night-stand joins her team for the investigation and he also might want more. She can relate very well to the victim, being brought up on the secluded islands that can feel as a prison and without the religious content though.
The problems brought on by such a strict religious community are better understood by DS Johann Grasmann who was raised in a similar strict catholic village. He connects a bit too well to the victim’s sister but is honest enough to admit this when Lena confronts him about it. He’s happy that he can work again with her and is a good, clever policeman and a skilled researcher. His hunches may not always be right but he usually knows when someone isn’t telling the whole truth.
I didn’t know that there are still Mennonites living in Germany, but it shouldn’t surprise me as Switzerland and Germany are the places where they originated. I think that their community is fairly depicted. Showing both the positive sides of community sense and family values as well as the difficulties of growing up in those circumstances, the anti-society/authority sentiment, arranged marriages at too young ages, distrust of outsiders and all-over secrecy.
All the elements are presented as they occur and you’re never certain if a person is only a witness or a suspect after all. The smells of sea and salt on the islands are mentioned on several occasions, as are the culinary delights but I miss the visual descriptions of both nature and village. But of course, it’s not a tourist guide or documentary. I certainly want to read more books from this writer and it’s a shame that they haven’t been translated into Dutch (to my knowledge) as the other half of the Wadden Sea belongs to The Netherlands. Not that they’re not good enough to merit a translation on quality alone.
I thank Netgalley and Amazon Publishing UK for their free ARC; this is my honest and unbiased review of it.

I received a free electronic copy of this police procedural set on the islands of Germany from Netgalley, author Anna Johannsen and translator Danice Hamilton, and Amazon Publishing UK. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend The Body on the Beach to friends and family. Lena Lorenzen is a character I thoroughly enjoyed.

Anna Johannsen brings us an excellent German police procedural, taking place on the small insular islands of the Kiel and Amrum. Our main protagonist is DI Lena Lorenzen, who is from Amrum, though she hasn’t been home in years, or spoken to her father. When she is called into Detective Superintendent Joachim Warnke’s office in her cop shop in Lubeck she assumes she’s in it deep again, but instead he is assigning her to investigate a questionable death on the beach of her home island. She is smart enough to know there is something hinky going on, or she would have been at the bottom of the list of detectives for this job, and that goes double when she finds she will be working with Sergeant Walter Reimers who she knows she can’t trust to have her back. But she finds DS Johann Grasmann, The Amrum police officer who will be working with her, is competent if perhaps a little too focused on coloring within the lines.

The body on the beach was first diagnosed as a heart attack – the victim, Hein Bohlen, had a history of heart problems. He was the owner and head of a residential children’s school under a great deal of stress and pressure, and interviews with his employees and wife, GP and banker point to an uncontrolled constant edge of anger and frenzy in his final days that makes the heart attack sound more and more certain. But for Lena, it just doesn’t fit. And there is so much else that just doesn’t fit – the thirty minutes of lost time between Sargeant Reimers’ arrival at the scene of death and the notification placed with the coroner. Why did Anna Bauer quit her job without notice after years at the school? One recent employee reported a heavy pass pressed on her by Bohlen – did Anna experience the same thing? Who is Isabel Muller who applied for Anna’s job before an ad was placed for the position? Where did Hein Bohlen actually get the 800,000 pounds he paid for the school? Why didn’t the bank figure out that he didn’t actually win the lottery, which was apparent after a simple computer search? Why did he take out a shedload of cash from his account over the last weeks of his life? Is his wife simply well-controlled or cold and heartless? Who would have wanted to Kill Bohlen? More to the point, who wouldn’t want to kill Bohlen?

Throw in a boyfriend getting too attached back home, and the re-appearance of the old boyfriend from long ago, also still too attached, and Lena has her hands full. But she can handle it. All.

DI Lena Lorenzen is a policewoman who will go the extra mile to solve her case. She has black marks on her record for doing her own investigations off the record. The case of the suspicious death of a local children’s home owner on her home island of Amrum takes Lena back to her youth. She is given support by her superior but only on the quiet so must use her own contacts to progress further. You will enjoy watching this strong female character stick to her principles and continue the case even when it looks like the case will involve senior public figures. The isolated island of her past adds to the atmosphere of the story and you will not regret picking this book for a lively mystery.