The Chestnut Man

Netflix

If you’re used to waiting two to three years between seasons of TV shows, try out Danish TV, where a show first aired in 2021 is returning to Netflix. This may be worth the wait, given that the original show had a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score.

The Chestnut Man, a Danish series based on a book by Søren Sveistrup. opens with the brutal murder of a family on a farm in 1987 then, 30 years later, another gruesome murder occurs, leading to connected cases and the missing daughter of a politician. It’s quite the winding road.

It took until 2024 to renew the show, ahead of the sequel book, The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek, which only came out this past March, and hopefully it will do well even five years later with an entirely new case to solve.

The Chestnut Man is one of a number of international crime series on Netflix to rack up 100% scores on Rotten Tomatoes, as the genre consistently delivers. Others on that list include:

• Dear Child (Germany): “A mysterious woman's escape from her harrowing captivity points investigators toward the dark truth behind her unsolved disappearance 13 years earlier.”
• The Innocent (Spain): “An accidental killing leads a man down a dark hole of intrigue and murder; just as he finds love and freedom, a phone call brings back the nightmare.”
• Rough Diamonds (Belgium): “When a man sends his family's empire into crushing debt, his estranged brother returns to Antwerp's diamond district to pick up the pieces.”

• The Snow Girl (Spain): “When a little girl goes missing during a parade in Málaga, a young newspaper journalist becomes fiercely determined to help Amaya's parents find her.”
• My Name (Korea): “Following her father's murder, a revenge-driven woman puts her trust in a powerful crime boss -- and enters the force under his direction.”
• A Killer Paradox (Korea): “When one accidental killing leads to another, an average college student finds himself stuck in an endless cat-and-mouse chase with a shrewd detective.”
• Kohra (India): “When a bridegroom is found dead days after his wedding, two police officers must unravel the troubling case as turbulence unfolds in their own lives.”

And there are more. Almost all of these are one-off miniseries, with “Kohra,” I believe, being the lone exception. Loads are based on books, which is part of the reason why. The Chestnut Man season 2, however, has more source material now. Hopefully it’s as good as the first.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.