About The Chestnut Man
The Chestnut Man (Danish: Kastanjemanden) is a six-part Danish Nordic-noir thriller that premiered on Netflix in 2021, adapted from the bestselling novel by Soren Sveistrup, the writer behind The Killing. Set across an autumnal Copenhagen of grey skies and rain-slicked suburbs, the series follows two mismatched detectives drawn into an unsettling investigation when a small figure woven from chestnuts and matchsticks turns up at a crime scene. What begins as a single case soon reveals a methodical pattern, pulling the pair into a web that reaches further than either of them expects.
At the centre are Naia Thulin, an ambitious Copenhagen investigator hoping to transfer out of homicide, and Mark Hess, a restless Europol officer reluctantly reassigned to Denmark. Forced to work together, the two clash in temperament and method before settling into a wary, increasingly effective partnership. As they trace the recurring chestnut figure, their inquiry begins to brush against the year-old disappearance of a government minister's daughter, a case the system had quietly closed and a thread the detectives cannot leave alone.
True to the tradition of Scandinavian crime drama, the show leans on mood, landscape and moral weight rather than spectacle. Its strength lies in the slow tightening of the investigation, the toll the work takes on Thulin and Hess, and the way a public official's private grief becomes entangled with the detectives' pursuit. Atmospheric, deliberate and anchored by its central duo, The Chestnut Man earned international attention as one of Netflix's most prominent Danish-language thrillers and a worthy companion to The Killing and The Bridge.
