I found Will Dean's book Dark Pines very refreshing to read.  Because he would use every day material exceptionally well.  For example, Tuva;s hearing aids were an integral part of the story and were there for the action, or not, whenever it took place.  The run in with the elk or moose at the beginning of the story was exciting, since her father was killed by an elk.  It was exciting whenever Tuva had to go to the woods even time she had to get a story as a reporter.  Frida, Hannes, Cornelia & Alice, and David Holmqvist were some of the characters that were under Tuva's radar for the killer.  But what happened, you'll have to read this book to find out.  You won't be disappointed.  I gave it 5 stars and highly recommend it.  What a find.

Yet another new novelist and a cracking read. This serial killer thriller is set in Sweden and the atmosphere is s	Yet another new novelist and a cracking read. This serial killer thriller is set in Sweden and the atmosphere is spot-on! A journalist on a local newspaper in rural Sweden is investigating the deaths of prominent local men and she links the current killings to a series of historic crimes. Although the book sometimes lacks the nerve-jangling tension of the very best thrillers, it is nevertheless a very good novel.pot-on! A journalist on a local newspaper in rural Sweden is investigating the deaths of prominent local men and she links the current killings to a series of historic crimes. Although the book sometimes lacks the nerve-jangling tension of the very best thrillers, it is nevertheless a very good novel.

A fantastic debut novel by Will Dean . Set in a small Swedish town the book is atmospheric and at times very creepy . Tuva is a deaf reporter who works for the local rag so to be near her ill mother . She is a fantastic character and I really look forward to reading more of her in the next book of the series . My thanks to the publishers and netgalley for my chance to read 4.5 stars

Do you watch Scandi thrillers?  Well this is one for you.  A gripping read set in the dark cold Swedish winter.  The characters are so well drawn that they live in your head long after you have finished the novel.  It did meander slightly in parts but soon came back on track leading the reader to a glorious twisted end.  Look forward to seeing Dark Pines on BBC4 or Channel4 in the near future. It is that good.

Gavrik is a remote Swedish village where news is mundane until the body of a hunter is discovered in the forest.  The local paper sends Tuva Moodyson to cover the story.  She is a deaf reporter who has returned home to work while her mother is in a nursing home dying of cancer.
Years ago several bodies were discovered with their eyes removed were dubbed the Medusa killings and police never found the killer.  Tuva learns of similarities between the murders and suspects the killer has struck again or it is the work of a copycat killer.  Handmade trolls left on her doorstep and an incident with the creepy taxi driver are a few of the events leaving her with the impression she may be closer to discovering the murderer than she realizes. 
Since the death of her father, Tuva has had an intense fear of the forest.  Before the end, she will have to confront her fears before she faces the killer.
What a story rich with characters and in an almost bleak environment.  Set in a strange village with unusual residents where the weather is cold and the forest dark and intimidating.
It took me a while before I realized the main character was female but that knowledge did not make a scrap of difference to my enjoyment. 
I also didn’t realize trolls could be so gross or learn of the wealth of folktales surrounding them until reading this book.  They certainly compliment the atmosphere created by the author and a stunning one it is!  This is the sort of book, which draws you in and keeps you there until the nail biting end.  Perfect for fans of Nordic fiction/mystery/thrillers.
Thank you to the publisher for providing a digital copy of this book via Netgalley.  This was a definite five star read and thanks for the opportunity to provide a review.

Do you ever truly know your neighbors? In a Scandinavian town so small that our main character refers to it as "Toytown", that very question is put to the test. As a newer addition to the town, Tuva Moodyson might just be the perfect person to figure out who is committing gruesome murders and whether or not these crimes are connected to a killing spree from a decade earlier. After all, is there really a better perspective than that of an outsider in the middle of it all?

Tuva is a character that I absolutely loved getting to know. I found myself rooting for her throughout the novel, sympathizing with her hardships and celebrating her successes. All in all, she's someone that I would want to be friends with, a quality that I think really adds to the success of a character. Getting to know her and the other members of the town through her eyes made the book even more enjoyable, as Dean has successfully crafted a witty, yet entirely realistic voice that makes readers want to keep coming back to her story. I also personally appreciated the representation shown in Tuva's character - she is a bisexual, deaf woman who Dean managed to seamlessly write without the use of overdone stereotypes, making her a believable character who was not defined by those traits, but simply had them as a piece of her.

This is not your typical procedural novel, primarily because of the fact that Tuva is a journalist. The fact that Tuva finds out most of her information secondhand rather than witnessing the crime scene up-close adds to the slow burning pace of the novel and adds a unique twist that I personally haven't seen used in crime fiction before. 

While it did take about 100 pages for this book to really pick up, I couldn't put it down once the story hit its stride for me. Overall, Dark Pines is a fantastic, refreshing novel that I enjoyed every second of.

This is my first foray into Nordic Noir and I am sure it won't be my last. In his debut, Will Dean has created a vivid but haunted and claustrophobic town in Gavrik, Sweden and a lively, spirited and forthright character in Tuva Moodyson. The story might be gruesome and overwhelmingly creepy, but that doesn't stop it from being humourous in places.

"My mouth’s dry and I’m hot in my sweater. I’m reversing into a crash with an elk in my face."

Despite the few lighter moments, the plot is generally quite dark and there are some very freaky characters throughout the book - almost literally everybody is a suspect in the ominous Mossen village and I did not work out whodunit.

"‘Well,’ I say. ‘It’s not like the killer will be wandering around the forest with a sign and a pocketful of eyeballs is it?’"

The story starts with a bang - and gives you a really good feel for the place and for Tuva - but I did find it a little over-long  in the middle. That said, the final fifth or so was absolutely thrilling and frankly terrifying, and I raced through it. I will definitely read more from Will Dean and from Tuva.

Thank you to NetGalley and Oneworld Publications / Point Blank for the ARC of Dark Pines.

I don't know what I feel about this book. I did enjoy it, there were all the elements to make this a great read. A small town, the woods, creepy characters, but something was missing. I didn't connect with the book the way I thought I would have. 

Maybe it had to do with the fact that I already saw the end coming. In fact, it seemed too obvious. Maybe it was because I have read so many crime mysteries that I don't feel thrilled anymore. I also didn't enjoy the pace, but that's just me, I prefer books with a faster pace. HOWEVER, I do understand the beauty of an evenly paced and meticulously written story. 

Overall, I think a lot of people will like it (which they clearly already do).

All reviews can be found on www.crimebookjunkie.co.uk 

OMFG this is such an amaaaazing book, I am not sure my review will do it justice! But I will give it a go!

The reader finds themselves in Sweden facing loss; grief; differences; secrets/lies; discrimination; small-town mentalities; judgement; a search for the truth – all is not what it seems in the isolated Swedish town, that’s for sure!!

Can I just say that the description throughout this debut novel was EXQUISITE!! I could just about smell the forest as I drank in the scenery that was so beautifully portrayed in this eery and somewhat haunting setting. Soooo atmospheric. *sigh* – I simply loved it! I also LOVED the story/plot! This was a total page-turner for me as the thrill of the mystery and suspense just grabbed me and would not let me go until I finished! I love how the suspects were all laid out early on in the book and as you got through each chapter you were left wondering – could it be….AWESOME!  For me, the pace was perfect – a gradual build up of tension throughout until the big reveal and OMFG – what a BOOM!

As for characters…this book was RICH with some fantastic, well developed characters that had me curious throughout! I wanted to know EVERYTHING about them – and Will Dean did not disappoint. I will mention just a few though as I think this is the type of book where you have to EXPERIENCE everything and my own views may differ from others.

Tuva Moodyson is now on my list of favourite characters- no doubt about that! After leaving London to help her mother, Tuva finds herself working in a small town newspaper office as a reporter. Tuva is deaf – though she can hear with the use of hearing aids. I love how she switches off her hearing aids when she wants to shut out the world. I also loved that she was determined that her hearing impairment doesn’t define her. I suspect there is a lot more for the reader to learn about this character, especially relating to her life in London as we really only scratch the surface – Eeeek! I can’t wait!

Another character…well two…who captured my interest were those creepy sisters and their trolls….WTAF!? I rarely get freaked out…but WOW – totally got under my skin ….even now I am getting shivers just thinking about them!

Finally – Frida and Hannes- a helpful couple, right? Erm…the pair are the type of couple that everyone seems to love on the surface but talk about behind their back. I personally thought this pair were fascinating. Frida is exceptionally inappropriate but you get the impression that although what she says at times is very offensive, it is down to her ignorance rather than being intentional. I really want to mention a few more characters – but I don’t want to overload readers and take away the pleasure of discovery when they first come across them! So I won’t – buy the book and find out for yourself!

So the million dollar (pound??) question is – would I recommend this book? Holy sh*tballs, peeps! You bet your sweet arse I do…with bells on! This was an incredible debut and I am soooo thrilled I had the opportunity to read this prior to publication. Dark, intriguing, atmospheric – the perfect delivery of noir on a plate – a deliciously twisted journey that will have you aching for more when you hit the last page – grab your copy of Dark Pines now and tell me I am wrong!  #TopReadof2018 #BOOM!

I am a HUGE fan of Dark Pines. This book is everthing I hoped it would be and more. It’s a very unique read with a setting and lead character which are just so different to what I’ve read before. First of all, we’re thrust deep into the dark forests of sweden in the middle of elk season.Now I was lucky enough to attend a gathering where people were out shooting in the woods and the noises, the feeling, the excitement and fear are brilliantly evoked here. The sense of darkness and claustrophobia tingles your senses and the book just gets better from here.

A great newness to this novel is the man character who is deaf and uses hearing aids. Again, more claustrophobia but this was more than that – I really got to feel part of her world and experience her world of silence and sounds – so through the ears of a character this time as well as her eyes. She is very much her own person – her disability is not her weakness. You don’t mess with this lady.

The mystery which takes place initially off the page with that gunshot in the woods ramps up big style and the ending is just perfect for the story.But oh my,what a journey it takes you on first. Through those dark unforgiving woods, the eerie shades of the dark pines cast shadows on the actions being played out below. It’s a backdrop to a theatre show where the actors are mere silhouettes – the forest rules here.

Brilliant in every way. I loved the little touches of Swedish humour and history – the ICA supermarket, the Prins Polo sweets…I hugged the book when I’d finished it.

Highly recommended. Will Dean I need book two NOW!

Five starts easy but this would be more if more existed on this scale

Well, apparently I am in the minority here. I never found my way into the story. I also never connected to Tuva. To be honest, I did not like her. I found her actions and investigations quite stupid.

Yes, there was a dark and disturbing atmosphere. The setting is creepy but the story itself did not work for me. I got bored and almost stopped reading. But I tent to finish books I got from NetGalley, just to give it a proper chance. Also there are a lot of raving reviews so I thought I was just missing something. But the end was no twist for me, maybe a bit of a surprise but the motive was ridiculous. 

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.

I always feel terrible when I have nothing good to say about a book which was given to me kindly by a publisher. I wanted to like this book so much. Fortunately I am almost the only one who did not like this book. It is probably me. Maybe I get picky or just read too much thrillers over the years. I find it harder and harder to be thrilled by a book these days. I hardly had a 5 star-review last year and I am very disappointed in myself that my first review in 2018 is just a 2 stars. 

 I am very sorry but “Dark Pines” war not my cup of tea.

Hard to put down this book as one becomes immersed in the darkness of the landscape and the forest. Tuva is a likeable character who shows she has weaknesses and not afraid to tell others. It was nice to see that when she was afraid she turned back or when given a gun to protect herself said no as she didn’t know how to use. The descriptions in this book were unbelievable and at times a bit over the top. The author likes explicit detail. The mystery component was interesting with the five houses along that eerie stretch of road. All unique characters. Very good read . Could of used less of the descriptions .

Awesome debut novel of Nordic Noir by the author. I can’t wait for the next Tuva book.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Oneworld publications and Will Dean for the opportunity to preview this book. It’s an excellent creepy, atmospheric crime thriller with a lead character very different from any I've read before. Tuka is deaf and this book is so well written and descriptive that I felt I was experiencing the claustrophobic  town of Gavrik along with Tuka.

A really good read.

I am blown away by the fact that this is a debut novel. Admittedly at first, it was the cover that drew me to the book but after reading the synopsis I knew I needed to read it. 

Will Dean has managed to create such a vivid setting with his writing, so much so I felt cold just reading it. Set in the isolated town of Gavrik, Sweden. The characters have such depth and such individual voices that I felt every single one of them was believable, regardless of their quirkiness. This is the first 'Nordic Noir' that I've read in a very long time and boy was a spoiled with this one! I enjoyed this so much that I have actually pre-ordered a finished copy and it'll be arriving on the day that it's released. 

Tuva, the protagonist in the story, is brilliant. A deaf reporter that moves from London to Gavrik to be closers to her unwell mother. She find a job as a local reporter and decided to investigate when a body is found in the depths of the woods, the MO matching a serial killer that was loose in the 90's. 

It is thrilling, mysterious and thoroughly gripping. I think this book will be a massive hit when it hits the shelves on the 4th of January and I'm betting you'll soon be seeing it everywhere, and that would be totally well-deserved.

Have Scandi Noir crime thrillers run their course?? Well on the evidence of this brilliant novel I think there's still room for a new name and it seems a new star to investigate crimes in the dark cold countries of the northern hemisphere.
 Tuva Moodyson has moved back to the small town of Gavrik in Sweden having started her journalistic career in London. Her mother is now terminally ill and Tuva has taken up a job on the small local newspaper which has very little to report beside the closure of businesses and the timings of the elk hunting season.
One night when she is driving through the dark overgrown Utgard forest she swerves to avoid an elk and then hears a gun shot.  The next morning a dead body is found shot in the chest with its eyes gouged out. The death reminds locals of the notorious unsolved Medusa murders during the 90s. Has a local serial killer re emerged to seek other victims? Will the small suspicious town lay bare its fears or close ranks against those brave enough to investigate the murders?
Tuva is an interesting character. She is deaf,  using hearing aids to pick up some sounds and is escaping some ghosts herself - her father's death and the life she led back in the UK. She knows some of the locals but is still seen as some what of an outsider and is scared of the terrifying depths of the forest and the local village residents who provide some classic suspects for the crimes. Who can forget the image of wood-carving scary sisters making life like trolls using human and animal hair!
The atmosphere is truly Scandinavian with darkness, numbing coldness and locals who live for "TV coffee and alcohol:the holy trinity pf cold countries", however Tuva is a bright light in the midst of this gloom and doggedly works to get her story, sort her life and solve the crime. 
There will probably be more books in this series with Tuva Moodyson and author Will Deans has struck a good slant on an old idea inviting us into her world and the dark undertones of firs, fire and frozen nights.

I don’t tend to read Scandinavian/Nordic type thrillers, although I’m not sure why. This one caught my eye and I’m glad I picked it up.

It was very atmospheric , the grimness of the town of Gavrik where Tuva Moodyson has moved to, so that she can be closer to her mother who is dying, was so astute.
Tuva works for the local paper as a reporter and starts investigating the murder of a local in the nearby Utgard Forest....and then another murder occurs. These murders have the hallmark of similar murders that happened in the same area in the 90’s. Are they related or just copycat killings?
I did find the novel a little hard to get into at first, I think this was more to do with getting a handle on the type of person Tuva was and the unfamiliar sounding names. But once I got going I was very invested. The sense of time and place was great. I could feel the darkness and cold of the forest and Tuva’s fear of all the area (she hates nature)
Then there were the strange inhabitants of the village that sat on the edge of the forest. Strange and quirky is all I can say. 
I really enjoyed this story and admired Tuva, suffice to say I will certainly pick up the next installment of the series.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy to read and review.

Traditional Nordic noir isn’t to everyone’s tastes. It can be oblique as well as beautiful, taking subtle understatement to the brink of a stilted stall. The bitter chill of a Scandinavian winter can be brittle and unwelcoming – not only to the characters, but to a new reader who might struggle to engage with the stoic nature of a soul honed by months of darkness in lonely isolation. At times, the genre can push matter-of-fact minimalism far beyond the boundary of mainstream crime fiction.

Dark Pines is the exact antidote to this. It seizes the core concepts of Scandinavian crime fiction and amps them up with a quarter-million volts of electric energy. It perfectly captures the eerie atmosphere of small-town rural Sweden, and blends it with the page-turning pace of an American thriller. You can feel the frost on your face and sense the menace in the twilight world of woods and wilderness. But author Will Dean doesn’t let the plot get bogged down by the stark beauty of the landscape. Instead he pushes events along with the urgency of an episode of 24 – there’s barely time to draw an icy breath…

Nor does Dean skimp on the characters. We ride along with journalist Tuva, a savvy young woman who’d be far happier working for a multinational media conglomerate in a hectic urban environment. She’d rather eat sushi than sheep’s head, any day. But for intensely poignant personal reasons Tuva is spinning her wheels at a local paper – trying to come to terms with a deep-seated grief while writing puff pieces about snow ploughs, school plays and planning applications.

When an elk hunter is found dead in the woods – with his eyes scraped out – Tuva seizes the chance to write her big story. And once she starts pulling on the threads of the investigation, we see just how solid a character she is; how committed and capable, but also terrifyingly vulnerable.

Tuva’s profound deafness is skilfully woven into the fabric of the story; her dependence upon her hearing aids feels like second nature by the end of the novel. This isn’t a token disability, but instead is an unflinching and realistic portrayal of coping with an additional challenge. In Tuva, Will Dean has created a genuinely three-dimensional protagonist, one who demonstrates considerable grit without breaking the boundaries of the real world.

The supporting cast are equally engaging – or threatening, depending upon their role in the absorbing storyline. People who live in log cabins in the middle of nowhere are likely to be out of the ordinary, and these guys are far from the usual suspects. One of them is a serial killer, a successful stalker and cold-blooded murderer. All of them are strange, slightly out of kilter, unsettling and sinister. Most have secrets they’re trying to hide – and Tuva swiftly discovers the sordid side to many hidden lives.

The result is a Scandinavian thriller which is perfect for people who haven’t tried (or haven’t liked) conventional Nordic noir. It’s accessible but complex; fast-paced but deeply layered. Think of the paperback equivalent to The Bridge or The Killing. Dark Pines would be a considerable accomplishment for an established author with dozens of books to his credit – it’s flat-out astonishing for a first novel. Definitely one of our best books of 2017, and a perfect way to start the New Year…
9/10

A really polished and accomplished debut and I'm loving that this is going to be a series!  

Dark, atmospheric and at times claustrophobic, Dark Pines is well written, the characters are vividly drawn and I loved the witty and observant descriptions of life in the remote Swedish town.  It's a tense and compelling mystery and  Tuva Moodyson has joined the list of my favourite characters :) 

Thank you Oneworld Publications for the Arc of this book -  I'm really looking forward to the next instalment.

4 - 4.5 stars

Dark Pines is the ideal read for Winter! Set in an isolated town in Sweden it's the perfect mix of thrills, heart pounding tension and murder. I love the main character Tuva Moodyson and hope we'll be seeing more of her.