Excerpt from A Death in Denmark by Amulya Malladi, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

All the children were taken away, forcefully.

"What's happening?" one boy asked in a language that Annemarie knew wasn't Danish, but she understood enough of the words to know what he was saying.

"They're taking us to bathe," another child said.

"Will I see my mother after that?" someone asked.

"Yes, once we're all clean," someone else replied.

But Annemarie feared she wouldn't see her mother or father again. She feared she wouldn't play in the forest again. She feared she wouldn't hold her doll, open a birthday present, or enjoy an ice cream cone. She feared she was going to die.

Chapter 1

Present

I noticed the dark-haired woman as soon as she walked into Mojo on that Friday night in May when it all began.

She was inappropriately dressed for the laid-back blues bar, wearing a severe dark pantsuit, her hair tightly pulled back from her face, black high heels with red soles, which I knew she had a weakness for, and a cool smile. Several eyes, including mine, followed her to the bar, where she ordered a drink from fair-haired Ricky.

She had a striking face. Dark among the blond, blue-eyed Danes. She took her glass of what I guessed was whiskey—she used to be a Johnnie girl—and walked up to the end of the room, right by the smoking booth. She held her drink in one hand, and the other was in her pocket. She leaned against the wall, confidence oozing out of her, as if she were saying, "You sure you want to talk to me?" to the men who wondered if they should try their luck with her.

Mojo, the place you went in Copenhagen if you were into the blues, was anything but fancy or chic. It was a hole in the wall. It was also atmospheric, inexpensive, and had been delivering live blues (or jazz or folk music) every day since the mid-eighties. It was not pretentious, and the only thing you had to worry about was arriving early enough not to get stuck at a table behind a pillar, with a partial view of the stage.

There were almost always musicians milling outside the bar with a beer and a cigarette, awaiting their turn onstage. It was a small community of blues musicians and most of us knew one another. I usually played with my band but others, less established, came by on Blues Jam Night on Thursdays, taking turns to play with familiar and new musicians. There were always one or two who were deemed too drunk to perform and kicked off the stage by Thomas, who ran the joint with an iron fist and a friendly smile on his dark face.

We were playing one of the last sets of the night. I was on guitar, while Bobby K finished singing, I'm gonna shoot you right down.

It was John Lee Hooker Night.

The woman I couldn't keep my eyes off sipped her golden whiskey slowly as we began to play one of my favorites, "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer."

I watched her watch me as my solo wound down and the clapping began.

"Give it up for my man Gabriel Præst on guitar," Bobby K said, and the crowd applauded. I bowed. "And let's give a hand to John Reinhardt on bass, the elegant Nuru Kimathi on drums, and my drinking partner Valdemar Vong on the sax."

Nuru, a Kenyan who had moved to Denmark after she met and married a Dane, smiled and waved at the crowd, leaned into her microphone, and, in a two-pack-a-day voice, said, "Let's not forget our fearless leader and a man who sings to make angels weep, Bobby K."

After the applause quieted, Bobby K told the crowd that we would wet our whistles and be right back with "Shake It Baby" and a few other precious gems to close the evening.

I picked up my beer from the bar and walked up to the dark-haired woman.

"Still singing the blues," she mused.

I smiled and leaned in to give her a perfunctory, almost platonic hug and said, "Hej."

She didn't flinch but she didn't lean into my hug either. I would've gone with a handshake, but I perversely wanted to see her response. Now that I had, I had no clue what I was after.

Excerpted from A Death in Denmark by Amulya Malladi. Copyright © 2023 by Amulya Malladi. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow Paperbacks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.