I don't think there is enough crime in this part of the world to justify this much bad genre fiction. ( )

I received an ARC from Netgalley to review this book. I was also reading a lot of Nordic noir at the same time, and this is one of the better books that I have read. It maybe that the main characters were closer to my own age so I related to them more, but the story included likable characters and a plot that involved ancient cult rituals which kept my interest. The plot was well developed although I have a bit of a hard keeping track of the characters in Nordic literature because I am not familiar with the names. Good job on the book though! ( )

This is not your usual Nordic Noir with an urban setting and damaged detectives pursuing crazed killers pretty much alone because the police administrators are clueless. Instead the setting is rural (Telemark) and the theme involves Nordic folklore (Pagan rituals surrounding the Summer Solstice). Max Fjellanger is only mildly damaged, having emigrated from Eidsborg, Norway to Florida 30 years earlier following a disagreement with the local sheriff about an unsolved missing person case. Max’s sidekick also is not the usual doe-eyed junior detective so prevalent in this genre, but a librarian obsessed with crime novels. Tirill Vesterli is a single mother who is a quick study when it comes to criminal investigation. She serves as a delightful counterpoint to the methodical Max.

The plot involves three deaths, all of which occur around the Summer Solstice. Peter Schram was a scholar studying the 13th century pagan legends associated with the local stave church and its wooden statue of Saint Nikuls. Before he split for Florida, Max was investigating Schram’s disappearance. More recently, Cecilie Wiborg, a graduate student also interested in Eidsborg’s stave church disappears. Max is drawn back for the funeral of his former partner, Knut Abrahamsen. This death was thought to be a suicide by drowning but Max doesn’t buy it and sticks around to solve the murder. It should be clear to anyone paying attention that these three deaths are linked and have something to do with the stave church. Sundstøl includes some clues to point the detectives toward that conclusion, including a ghostly monk messing with the Saint Nikuls statue in the middle of the night and a severed pigs head.

What seems like an interesting marriage of the detective and horror genres ultimately never really develops a head of steam. The plot has few surprises and seems to develop too slowly. Moreover, the characters are not well drawn. The relationship between Max and Tirill seems promising but is never fully explored. The concept of Christianity’s tense relationship with Paganism also is intriguing, but was not developed well enough to provide the reader with an understanding of the motivations that might drive people to commit murder or to engage in strange rituals in the woods at night. ( )

Reposted with permission from Reviewing the Evidence.

Max Fjellanger left Norway and his job as a police officer in a small town in Telemark to become a private investigator in Florida. When he gets word that the man who had been his partner has died, he flies home for the funeral, intending a short visit. But there's something strange about the man's death. Why did he go back to the town where they had worked to fill his pockets with stones and throw himself into a lake? Max is also haunted by a memory: the sheriff he reported to refused to let him use an eager tracker dog when they were looking for a missing man – a man who was never found. Before long, he's postponing his trip back to the States to put his memory to rest.

Tirill Vesterli is a university librarian who reads Swedish crime novels in her spare time after putting her little boy to bed. She finds herself intrigued by unsolved crimes, including the case of a young graduate student who disappeared on Midsummer Eve. Tirill has a theory that the student's research about an ancient statue in a medieval stave church is the key to her fate, but when she took it to the police they laughed at her. Undaunted, she raises her theory with Max and, since the man Max and his partner had searched for had also been researching the church, they decide to delve deeper.

Sundstøl is known to American readers as the author of the Minnesota Trilogy, set on the north shore of Lake Superior. The first book in the trilogy, LAND OF DREAMS, won the Riverton Prize, Norway's highest honor for crime fiction. This story is a more modest affair. As in the trilogy, Sundstøl is inspired by landscapes and history. In this case, the stave church and its ancient statue is a well-known historical site in southern Norway, and the story imagines the possibility that ancient rituals involving the statue have been preserved and are still practised in secret in parallel with a tamer re-enactment that is performed for tourists.

Though the ending is overly cinematic, the two detectives are well-drawn and engaging companions on this eerie journey into small-town Norway and into its darker past.

This is a scary Norwegian detective thriller about ancient traditions and modern murder.

The publisher's blurb tells us the plot and raves on about the author Vidar Sundstøl. Well the truth is that the book really is good and Vidar Sundstøl is a good writer. I found the story to be unusually scary for what is basically a murder mystery.

I received a review copy of "The Devil's Wedding Ring" by Vidar Sundstøl translated by Tiina Nunnally (University of Minnesota Press) through NetGalley.com. ( )