Last Train to Helsingor by Heidi Amsinck ** blog tour review & Author Q and A**

Some of you may have heard some of these nordic noir short stories being read aloud on BBC Radio 4. Last Train to Helsingor is a great collection of slightly sinister short stories by Heidi Amsinck. 
 
The sound of loud voices made him turn. Two old women had entered the room, obviously roused out of bed. They wore dressing gowns and their long silvery hair hung loose over their shoulders. Borg was reminded of his grandmother, a mild-mannered woman who had looked after him during his school holidays. 

He noticed that the women’s faces were identical. 

‘Joachim!’ exclaimed one of the twins, clapping her hands. ‘What have you got for us this time?’ 

From the commuter who bitterly regrets falling asleep on a late-night train, to the mushroom hunter prepared to kill to guard her secret, Last Train to Helsingor is a chilling and darkly humorous collection of stories. Copenhagen becomes a city of twilight and shadows, as canny antique dealers and property sharks get their comeuppance at the hands of old ladies, and ghosts act in most peculiar ways.   

With echoes of Daphne du Maurier, Roald Dahl and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen, Last Train to Helsingor will keep you awake into the small hours. 

My Thoughts

The perfect run up to Hallowe'en next week, these short stories are best dipped into a few at a time. I found them eminently readable. Set around Copenhagen, they all shared the same feeling of inevitability and slight disorientation. Something is definitely not right in each of these scenarios. Its a feeling which seems to creep up on the central characters and adds to their creepy feel. The opening story and the one which gives the collection its name, Last Train to Helsingor, is a cracker. Who hasn't fallen asleep on a train, even if only for seconds and then woken up feeling slightly unsure of where you are? 

    Mysterious faces at the windows and strangers who appear out of the blue. These are all features which recur within the stories. Another favourite of mine was The Chanterelles of Ostvig which had a real fairy tale feel about it. Of course, within most fairy tales there is a sinister, unexplained factor and this had that feeling. The central character, an old woman has an air of mystery and almost magic about her. The setting, and everyone she meets, seem to appear as if from nowhere.

    The events in these stories are unexpected and at times menacing. The people we meet can be obsessive or seeming to have something to hide. Each of the stories is brief but economical They are packed full of atmosphere and the feeling that something unexpected is just around the corner. 

In short: Short stories weave together a tapestry of an unsure and sinister world. 
 

About the Author

Heidi Amsinck, a writer and journalist born in Copenhagen, spent many years covering Britain for the Danish press, including a spell as London Correspondent for the broadsheet daily JyllandsPosten.  She has written numerous short stories for radio, including the three-story sets Danish Noir, Copenhagen Confidential and Copenhagen Curios, all produced by Sweet Talk for BBC Radio 4, which are included in this collection . 

A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, Heidi lives in Surrey. She was previously shortlisted for the VS Pritchett Memorial Prize. Last Train to Helsingor is her first published collection of stories.

You can follow Heidi here: Twitter  |  Goodreads

Book links:  Amazon UK

Thanks to Heidi Amsinck and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for a copy of the book and a place on the tour. 

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