Every now and then you encounter a book
which leaves you part excited, part frustrated. Dark
Pines is one on those books. It is a
debut effort from a Brit who has had the good sense to flee to Sweden for his
inspiration.
The setting is small town Sweden, a
place called Gavrik which boasts a liquorice factory, a pulp mill, a few shops
and a nearby motorway, which transports locals to a lap dancing club, once the
local brothel, before leaving the town to its laurels. More than that Gavrik
boasts a community newspaper which provides employment for Tuva Moodyson, a
deaf reporter. Tuva has also washed up in Gavrik after time in the UK working
for the Guardian. Ostensively, she has returned to Sweden to be near
her dying mother, though there are hints of additional reasons for leaving
London. Even in the remoteness of Gavrik and the Utgard Forest Tuva has
retained her journalistic ambitions to find that one big story which will make
her name, win her awards, and propel her back into the bigtime.
The opportunity arises when one after
another hunters are discovered dead in the dank, dark pines of the Utgard
forest after being shot with hunting rifles. Additionally, their eyes have been
gouged out, which reminds local police and residents of similar murders
committed twenty years earlier which remain unsolved. While the police set
about finding the killer, or killers, Tuva concentrates on the human interest, the
impact the murders have on the local community. Even though the two quests
often interweave, it is this separation which generates the first element of
frustration.
Tuva repeatedly visits the four
residences which edge the forest: that of the taxi-driver, a dead shot with a
rifle who lives with his withdrawn son, the two sisters who carve out a living
producing hideous trolls complete with human hair and other attributes, a
reclusive writer who makes a living penning books for other to claim authorship
of, and finally the couple consisting of Tuva's best friend and her husband who
manages the pulp mill and heads up the local hunting fraternity. Whilst these
are the people most affected by the murders they are also, to her mind, the
most likely suspects. That possibility is confirmed when she discovers one of
them had been interviewed by police on suspicion of the earlier murders.
Meanwhile, the police investigation
continues obliquely with the police keeping their cards close to their chests
even as the additional murders attract national press coverage and their secrecy
increasingly frustrates Tuva and her press colleagues.
Hence, the book skirts round the usual
stuff of crime fiction – the murders themselves and the police investigation,
leaving Tuva to drive her truck from here to there, sometimes venturing out on
foot, or by bike, into the pines, most of the time hooking and unhooking her
hearing aids and musing on either the pastoral symphony of the woodland or the
poetic silence when she opts to dispense with her hearing aids. Being deaf
myself I would normally identify fully with a hero with similar problems. But
as worthy as she is, Tuva did tend to exhaust my sympathy with her frequently
trivial pursuits.
The story too has similar issues. There
is nothing wrong with the wonderful way Will Dean paints the bleak forest and
its almost claustrophobic effect on a local community trying to compete in a
global economy which is increasingly diverting its benefits elsewhere. And, by
and large, there is little wrong with the warts and all characters who emerge
out of this gaunt landscape. But for all that, the storyline evolves flatly and
evacuates any real drama until the final chapter. When that drama does finally explode, the
effect both gratifies while convincing you some of it could have been diverted
to the earlier chapters.
So a promising start for Will Dean
which will no doubt draw comparisons, justified or otherwise, with the likes of
Hoeg and Hankell.
