Søren Sveistrup, who wrote "The Chestnut Man" is also behind the book "Hide and Seek".
I haven't decided yet if it will be a third book about these people, he says.
Children's Development
These people are the female police officer Naia Thulin and the somewhat odd investigator Mark Hess. In "The Chestnut Man" they chased a serial killer who left small chestnut figures at the crime scenes. In "Hide and Seek" they are forced to cooperate again in the pursuit of a murderer who stalked them and where the tracks go more than 30 years back in time.
Like in the first book, the intrigue is based on children and how their upbringing will shape them. Sveistrup tackled the same subject in the manuscript for the film "Our Time Will Come" a few years ago.
-Children's development to adulthood is interesting. One has an enormous innocence and fantasy as a child, then things happen that make this disappear. It's the most terrible thing I know. I have a big heart for children, they get mistreated in different ways and don't get to grow up to become normal people.
Echoes from Childhood
Sveistrup's wife is a journalist and deals with true crime.
When I read her texts, I see how all these criminals have had a terrible childhood. They have lacked everything.
He himself is adopted, something he didn't find out until he was 12 years old. His adoptive father was an alcoholic, his adoptive mother committed suicide when Søren was 21.
- There are things that scare me, an echo from my childhood. Not being able to understand the adults' language.
Even though "The Chestnut Man" has reached out over the world, it is as a scriptwriter for the TV series "Crime" (which was remade in the USA as "The Killing" with Joel Kinnaman) that Søren Sveistrup has become most known so far.
What is most satisfying, to write a novel or a TV series?
- It's probably the novel. Then I sit alone and write and have no one who is pushing me and saying that "then and then you must be finished". I can work at my own pace.
When "The Chestnut Man" became a TV series, he was active in the process. He won't be with "Hide and Seek" (whose English title will be "Count to one, count to two").
- Now Netflix has taken over.
Age: 57 years.
Family: Wife Kristina, two boys.
Lives: North of Copenhagen.
Author.
Previous works: Manuscripts for, among others, "Our Time Will Come", "The Snowman", "The Hotel", "Crime", the book "The Chestnut Man".
Current: With the book "Hide and Seek".
