A murder
A resident of small-town Visberg is found decapitated.
A festival
A cultish hilltop community ‘celebrates’ Pan Night after the apple harvest.
A race against time
As Visberg closes ranks to keep its deadly secrets, there could not be a worse time for Tuva Moodyson to arrive as deputy editor of the local newspaper. Powerful forces are at play, and no one dares speak out. But Tuva senses the story of her career, unaware that perhaps she is the story….
I am a massive fan of the TV series, Supernatural, and my favourite ever episode of the show is Episode 11 of Season 1 which is entitled, Scarecrow. This book reminded so much os the atmosphere of that episode and everything I love about it.
Tuva has returned to Gavrik and her job at the Postern newspaper and, following the buyout of another local paper, her patch has been extended to cover the isolated and secretive town of Visberg where a decapitated body has been found. Anyone who has read the previous Tuva Moodyson books will know that Tuva is never content with reporting on criminal investigations but she likes to get involved and this time is no different. Because she is not a police officer, she is able to get people to trust her in a way they cannot and she is privy to hidden information. This time she gets too involved and finds herself in grave danger.
This is one of the creepiest books in the series. The town, the plot, the perpetrators are all terrifying and I was completely hooked on the story. I thought it was going to go in a completely different direction and was not expecting the weird and disturbing turn it took at the end. The finale was so shocking that I immediately had to start the next book in the series, so desperate was I to find out what comes next. That’s the sign of a great thriller.
As always, the narrator of this series is fantastic, she captures Tuva perfectly and carries me with her through the book without distraction.
About the Author
Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands, living in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying law at the LSE, and working many varied jobs in London, he settled in rural Sweden with his wife. He built a wooden house in a boggy forest clearing and it’s from this base that he compulsively reads and writes.
DARK PINES, the first in the Tuva Moodyson series, was published to huge critical acclaim in 2018, was shortlisted for Not the Booker prize, selected for Zoe Ball’s TV Book Club and named as a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. RED SNOW and BLACK RIVER were both longlisted for Crime Novel of the Year at the Theakston Old Peculier Awards in 2020 and 2021 respectively, and RED SNOW was also shortlisted for the Independent Voice Award at the Capital Crime Amazon Readers Awards 2020.
Will’s first standalone novel, THE LAST THING TO BURN, was a word-of-mouth sensation reviewed positively by readers and media alike. It was shortlisted for Thriller Book of the Year at the Fingerprint Awards 2022, Crime Novel of the Year at the Theakston Old Peculier Awards 2022 and the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2022, and was longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award 2022.
THE CHAMBER, the latest standalone thriller from Will Dean, was published in the UK by Hodder in June 2024. Simon & Schuster will publish in the US in August 2024.
Connect with Will:
Twitter: @willrdean
Instagram: @willrdean
