#BookReview Bad Wolf by Nele Neuhaus @NeleNeuhaus @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress

Bad Wolf by Nele Neuhaus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

She looked at herself in the mirror, touched her fingertips to the little red hood on her head, and laughed. The dress was a real dirndl, with a short skirt and apron. Papa had plaited her hair into two braids, and she really looked exactly like Little Red Riding Hood in her fairy-tale book.

He always brought presents—it was a secret that she and Papa shared, because he never brought anything for the others. Only for her. She was his favorite.

The door opened, and she uttered a frightened cry when she saw the wolf. But then she had to laugh. It wasn’t a real wolf after all; it was only Papa, who had put on a costume. How lovely it was that she was the only one to share this secret with Papa. Too bad she could never remember anything afterward.

On a hot June day, the body of a sixteen-year-old girl washes up on a riverbank outside of Frankfurt. She has been brutally murdered and shows signs of long-term abuse, but no one comes forward with any information as to her identity. Even weeks later, the local police have not been able to find out who she is. Then a new case comes in: A popular television host is attacked, raped, and locked in the trunk of her own car. She survives, barely, and is able to supply only vague hints to the police, having to do with her recent investigations into an organization whose members are from the highest echelons of society, and the potential uncovering of a shocking history they’d prefer to keep from the public eye. 

As the two cases collide, Inspectors Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein dig deep into the past and underneath the veneer of bourgeois society to come up against a terrible secret that is about to impact their personal lives as well. It is almost too late for a person very close to Pia before she and Oliver finally track down the big bad wolf...

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If there is one series that I wholeheartedly recommend reading if you are a fan of crime novels is it this one. I simply adore the Bodenstein & Kirchhoff books. So far, have I read 3 books, and all of them are 5-star books. This is the second book I read. The only sad thing is that not all the books are translated into English (nor Swedish). However, Lucky me have one more unread book to read, THE ICE QUEEN!

What I loved about the first book I read, SNOW WHITE MUST DIE, was that there was so much going on. Both when it comes to the case as Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein private lives. The same thing can I say about BAD WOLF. I'm always intrigued by stories that take a while before you started to see a pattern. Like a puzzle, you slowly start to put the pieces together and as the story progresses you start to realize the truth. In this case, you have quite early one a feeling of dread.

BAD WOLF is a fantastic crime novel. Nele Neuhaus has such a fabulous ability to write that I get so engrossed in what is going on that I just devour her books. I found this book to be a bit hard to read, not because of the writing, but because of the subject. 

It's not the monster under the bed that is frightening, it's the one walking in plain sight out in the sun. It's the bad wolf that is hiding in plain sight that we should be wary of...