Tuva Moodyson Mystery Series 3 Books Collection Set By Will Dean (Dark Pines, Red Snow, Black River)

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Nordic noir at it's finest! What a compelling story this was. This is a slow burning novel but never once did I lose interest. Our main character Tuva is a deaf, bi-sexual reporter whom I've become seriously attached to. She is such a wonderful character that you just can't help but root for her. The scenery depictions really sets the atmosphere of this novel. I almost felt like I was in Sweden while reading it. The idea is horrific. Lenn is kind of eroding her identity, layer by layer, by burning her possessions,” says Dean. “I’m not a very intellectual writer, I really feel my way through stories. So I was uncomfortable for her and worried for her all the way through. And the hope that she saw all the way through the book got smaller and smaller.” Will sets us on a remote farm with a lovely name – Rose Farm – but despite Shakespeare saying “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” this is not the case here. There is a smell – a dark, raw smell about the place. A murder suicide took place here many years ago. A father killed his entire family leaving only the baby behind. This story is based in Sweden in a small rural town, out in the deep, dark woods – like, really deep and really dark. It’s the type of place where the best coffee is at McDonalds, and everyone knows everyone else. Our main character is Tuva, she is an outsider and most of the locals treat her as such. Tuva is a journalist for the local paper and she is tasked with covering a recent murder. A murder where the victim is shot in the woods and his eyes are removed. Nice hey? Tuva is a very likable protagonist, she’s bright, and inquisitive and determined to do a thorough job, no matter how much the locals may be offended by her inquisitiveness and reporting.

Some characters from the previous books return, including her best friend Tammy, Lars and Nils from the newsroom, Police Chief Bjorn Andersson, and police officer Thord. Tuva visits Noora, cared for in her mother's home. Both women sit with former officer Noora, but there is no response. It didn’t feel brave at the time. It would have felt more brave staying in London, to be honest,” he says. “Being on the tube at 6am every day, we just didn’t want that any more. And I craved more time to read and write, and to take that seriously. I never thought I would be a writer and never imagined it until I was in my mid-30s.” Rather cleverly, the author confronts the risk of being accused of writing in the voice of a character he cannot possibly know by having one of the characters say to Tuva after a simple observation the latter makes on the former’s relationship: I really hope you don’t mind me saying, but you can’t really know about these things until you’ve been married yourself.I also did not like the writing style. It was very slow and full of strange metaphors. For example: “The three-quarter moon makes the woods as grey as the blood you find under a cooked salmon filet”. Hm….I just kept stumbling over such strange sentences. Now he has set wolves on his readers. Wolves with evil eyes and the scent of blood in the air. The setting of this rural part of Sweden with the towns of Visberg and Gavrik (fictional) is just chillingly perfect. The forests have eyes, the river has snakes and there are sisters who make troll dolls. Further Tuva has additional complexities to her character: her fear of the wild; the loss of her father and the longer lasting repercussions of that, including the impact it has on her victim’s family-sensitive approach to journalism; her ever present guilt over the conflict between her career ambitions and her need to look after her mother – which lead her to uneasy short and long term compromises (including her very move to a small Swedish town) which fail to satisfy either requirement – and some quirks (mainly wine gums and gaming). Dark Pines" written by Will Dean is the first in the deaf journalist, Tuva Moodyson series set in Sweden and was featured on the Sunday morning tv show 'The Zoe Ball Book Club'. This is sort of more of problem 6, but our character is dislikeable in still another way. She's a preacher. Apparently it's not nice to compliment a deaf person on their speaking skills. Even if it's meant to be a compliment, "it's just f***ing not" she says (actual quote) and shame on you, reader, for thinking anything else. You are the bad guy here. You because you're not deaf, you're not bisexual, your best friend isn't Thai, you're not half Sami and you may not be female.

Rose Farm is home to a group of survivalists, completely cut off from the outside world. Until now.

Now the opening to this book may seem familiar (although I can hear the outcry now given I now where it is going to lead), but given where Tuva lives, in Northern Sweden, her driving alone through a remote area is not really a surprise. What is more of a surprise is where this particular journey is going to lead her - to investigate the disappearance of a young woman who was last seen working at a farm which has a very particular reputation around the area. And it's not unfair to say that to gain a reputation around places like Gavrik and Visberg is no mean feat! These are communities that seem to specialise in weird and unusual, so to be singled out in any way takes some doing. I liked this, how could you not like something so atmospheric and that takes you to the wilderness of Sweden forests? Dark Pines by Will Dean is a pretty good thriller and whodunnit. You know one of those stories where you’re thinking about who the culprit is while you’re doing other things. The only other Will Dean book I’ve read is The Last Thing to Burn, which was good too – I gave that one 4 stars. I'm not adverse to the occasional bleak Scandinavian murder novel, though in all honesty, I do feel they are becoming a little formulaic. However, this one had enough 'new' elements to keep me reading on. It seems the murders have started again with the discovery of the mutilated body of a hunter in the forest.