Dark Pines

‘An elk emerges from the overgrown pines and it is monstrous.’

Tuva Moodyson, isolated Gavrik’s newest reporter, is less than keen on being surrounded by overgrown forest and occasionally charged at by an elk, but Gavrik is home and home is near where her terminally ill mother lives, so she’s learned to live with her fear of the forest and the sound of the gunshots from the elk hunts.

When those gunshots find people instead of elk, and those people turn out to be missing their eyes, Tuva realises she will have to go deep inside the forest if she is to learn the truth and write the story that will make her name...

--- What’s it about? ---

Tuva’s investigation into the murders takes a darker turn when she discovers that there was show more a cluster of unsolved homicides twenty odd years ago - the Medusa murders - and those bodies were also missing their eyes.

While she gets to know the local characters, (apparently you can’t live that close to Utgard Forest without being exceedingly odd,) the local population start to turn her against her. Tuva is determined, for deeply personal reasons, to write The Truth about these murders, but the local community are more concerned about maintaining their reputation and ancient rights to hunt in the forest. If Tuva doesn’t find the murderer, will they find her?

--- What’s it like? ---

Atmospheric. Creepy. Cold. The town is cold, the characters are cold and the notion of stealing somebody’s eyes is deeply chilling.

This is the kind of small town where the oddball characters are so very odd you can imagine any one of them as the killer - or perhaps more than one of them, in the case of the elderly sisters who hand-carve trolls made with real human hair for a living.

--- Writing deafness ---

Tuva is deaf and this is referenced frequently from the very first page. She is constantly putting her hearing aids in, turning them on, turning them off, drying them out...this might sound dull but actually it gives an insight into how she has adapted to her deafness; she frequently relishes complete silence, tuning out all distractions by the simple act of turning off her aids.

--- Final thoughts ---

Although I had to question Tuva’s sanity when she chose to enter Utgard forest armed with a ball of wool and a slingshot, (Hiya, Gretyl; give my love to the witch when she catches you,) I enjoyed the creepy atmosphere throughout, the general development of Tuva’s investigation and her increasing boldness.

Tuva returns in ‘Red Snow’ and I’m looking forward to finding out what and who she’s investigating next. show less

Will Dean’s debut novel is a cracker. He introduces us to Tuva Moodyson, a reporter on the local newspaper in Gavrik, a small town in rural Sweden. She has moved there from London to be nearer her terminally ill mother who is in care two hours drive away. Unexpectedly, a series of killings takes place in the forest near Gavrik which appear to resemble an earlier three from 20 years previously, which were unsolved. Dean skilfully contrasts Tuva’s outsider status with the interrelationships and friendships of the long time residents and which she suspects mean that leads are being ignored. Her isolation is heightened by her deafness and subsequent struggles with her hearing aids. As Tuva digs deeper for the killer, her fear of the show more forest adds to the sense of danger and result in an atmospheric feeling of the coldness and wildness enveloping the characters making for a highly entertaining and absorbing mystery. show less

Well! This is one of the series I’ll be following! Picked this up for my month of reading noir and it did not disappoint. The main character is Tuva Moodyson, and she is deaf, worth noting in itself. Putting her in a dark smelly mucky damp wood with failing hearing aid batteries and a dying phone- and a murderer killing people and plucking their eyes out... well that was totally claustrophobic and involving. Will Dean is very good at creating atmosphere. He loses one star for making Tuva eat wine gums and comment on it every time. Ditto the water in the hearing aid stuff- we get it, could be a less common repeat. And we get some interior monologue happening only near the end where we find out some character details about Tuva and why show more she is how she is. Mind you, she is living in isolation, so few friends to chat with and she’s on a deadline.. as it were.
Highly recommended and I am going right now to the library to get #2 in the series!!! show less

It's midnight now but I had to finish. Now I'm sleeping, so I'll review in the morning.

Well! I loved this book thoroughly. I dont read many thrillers, and I've not really read any scandi-thrillers, but after this I'll feel a lot more inclined to do so. I loved the story and the slow, tense pacing, but most of all I love the characters. There were two main characters, one was the journalist - female, deaf, guilt over her ill mother - and the other was the forest itself. Dark, brooding, full of hidden depths and genuinely disliked by the main character! I could visualise every moment of description despite never having been further north than belgium - I think a mixture of the Black Forest in Germany and perhaps the New Forest in the UK, show more which both have a similar air of mystery to them, if not quite as bleak.

All the characters were well written and described, and the villages strange inhabitants were probably the most interesting, leaving you truly uncertain about 'whodunnit' as it were. I didn't see the ending coming, although I'd pretty much suspected everyone we were introduced to in the whole book, as they were all a bit...shifty. It was overall a fun, exciting and evocative read, and I'll definitely look for more books from this author in the future. show less

I'm very fond of Scandinavian crime thrillers, so of course this one went on my wish list. It kept my attention and was hard to put down. A large cast of local offbeat characters kept me guessing who dunnit, and who dunnit kept changing with each new altercation, although I did - with some thought - figure out who it likely was even if I didn't know why til the end.

At first, I thought this was a novel that had been translated as the writing is stilted and sometimes painfully simplistic. I did enjoy the absence of extraneous information, however: I don't need to know the history of a town back to the last ice age, or the soil composition, etc., unless it's directly pertaining to the story. In fact, in this case, I'd have liked a tiny bit show more of that as I didn't find the forest as menacing as I was lead to believe it would be and as the main character seemed to think.

The novel featured the main character driving around alot, fiddling with her keys, and worrying about her hearing aids. At only one point, as the action peaks, does the subject of her hearing aids become a point of concern. Lots of repetition of these things became a point of annoyance for me as a reader and seemed like filler. Without them, the story would have been half the length it was.

The ending, also, was unsatisfying and seemed to come abruptly, unbelievably, and with no follow up. Why were all those people in the forest? How did they know she was there? How did they even find her? Why did no one ask what was going on? Why were the troll dolls made??

So, while it wasn't perfect, it was interesting. I learned that it rains alot in Sweden, the mosquitoes are gigantic, troll dolls are met with suspicion, and most (?) men outside of the big city own guns for hunting. I will check out the second Tuva Moodyson novel. show less

At first i really enjoyed reading this book. Then, the 100 page test, i was getting bored with the repetition and not getting anywhere with the plot, but i kept reading. Finally, last 50 pages, i jumped to the end.
Predictable, could have saved 100 pages in the writing.
Likable main character, but i do not know if i would attempt the second book.
Too bad