In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Denmark: A Brief Overview: Background information when reading A Death in Denmark

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

A Death in Denmark by Amulya Malladi

A Death in Denmark

The First Gabriel Præst Novel

by Amulya Malladi
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Paperback:
  • Mar 2023, 336 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About This Book

Denmark: A Brief Overview

This article relates to A Death in Denmark

Print Review

Black-and-white photo of resistance fighters in Copenhagen, crouched on a street corner with guns, 1945 Amulya Malladi's A Death in Denmark takes place in the country of Denmark in the north of Europe, which is comprised of the Jutland peninsula and an archipelago of over 400 islands. To the south, Denmark shares a border with Germany. On its west side, it is separated from the United Kingdom by the North Sea. The Baltic Sea and Sweden lie to its east. Together with Sweden and Norway, it makes up the region commonly known as Scandinavia.

A constitutional monarchy, Denmark has one of the best standards of living in the world, a competitive economy based on service with a high employment rate, and an efficient social security system. Queen Margrethe II, its current head of state, hails from one of the world's longest unbroken lines of monarchs. Its current prime minister is Mette Frederiksen, who in 2019 at the age of 41 became the youngest person in Denmark's history to hold this position.

Denmark has had a significant influence on European history. In the Middle Ages, the whole of Scandinavia was under the Danish monarchy; however, it had lost many of its territories by the end of the 19th century. Malladi's novel touches on more recent Danish history. As a European nation, Denmark was affected by both World Wars. It declared neutrality in World War I, but during World War II, it was subjected to German occupation from 1940 to 1945. The country maintained some amount of power over its own affairs until 1943, when Germany took over political control.

By this time, the resistance movement that had begun organizing in 1940 was gathering steam. Thousands joined these groups, determined to carry out campaigns and acts of sabotage against the Germans. These included publishing illegal newspapers, and destroying German property as well as that of companies that associated with the Nazis. The resistance groups are perhaps most famous for the rescue operations they undertook to smuggle Jewish residents to safety in Sweden. Most of these operations were successful, such that when the Gestapo attempted to arrest Danish Jews they could ultimately find fewer than 500 out of the approximately 8,000 who had been in the country.

However, not every non-Jewish Dane contributed to these acts of goodwill. There is evidence of there having been as many as 300,000 Nazi collaborators in Denmark (out of a total population of around four million) at the time. Some Danish citizens collaborated with the Nazis to profit out of this cooperation for personal gain. Some betrayed the location of Jews' hiding places, enabling their deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto.

Denmark is known today to be a liberal, progressive country with free education, excellent health care programs and a great social welfare system. However, its public image has suffered in recent years from its treatment of immigrants and refugees. In the 1990s, anti-immigration stances began to rise among right-wing groups, leading to more restrictive immigration legislation. In 2005, the country became the center of controversy after a Danish paper published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Denmark's immigration policies continue to be a central issue in its politics, and a matter of debate on the international platform.

Freedom fighters at Strandboulevarden in Copenhagen. May 5, 1945
National Museum of Denmark, via Picryl

Filed under Places, Cultures & Identities

This article relates to A Death in Denmark. It first ran in the May 17, 2023 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.