ICE TOWN
Will Dean
Hodder & Stoughton (hodder.co.uk)
£20
Buy a copy from your favourite independent bookshop
When news reaches Gavrik that a Peter Hedberg, a young deaf man, has gone missing, Tuva Moodyson packs up and takes the nine hour drive to Sweden’s arctic north. She is chasing the story, but she also hopes to offer her help, both in finding the young man, and in helping him once he is found. Her destination is Esseberg – Ice Town – a town of barely one thousand souls situated in a bowl formed by a ring of mountains. The only way in and out of the town is the one-lane tunnel that is drilled through one of the mountains. Upon arrival Tuva finds a ski resort in the throes of death, overlooked by the sadly-neglected Pinnacle Hotel, which is reachable only by a chairlift, the owners having run out of money to repair the rack-and-pinion railway that once ran between the hotel and the town. Shortly after her arrival, a body is found in the snow and suddenly people begin to question whether Peter Hedberg has, in fact, gone missing, or if he’s another victim. Or, and the final possibility is one Tuva doesn’t want to contemplate, is Peter killing his fellow Ice Town residents in retaliation for the treatment he has received from his contemporaries? As Esseberg starts to fill with Sweden’s media, and the body count begins to rise, Tuva finds herself doing what she does best: pissing people off in pursuit of the story.
Ice Town is Tuva Moodyson’s sixth outing in as many years, and the novels just keep going from strength to strength. The Tuva we find as this latest novel opens is much different from the young reporter we met all the way back in Dark Pines. She has since lost her mother and her soulmate, been close to death herself countless times, and seen more evil in half a decade than most people will experience in their lifetime. It’s interesting, then, that her first thought upon hearing about the disappearance – a young man she doesn’t know, who lives in a place she has never heard of – is to go and help, to use her own experiences growing up as a deaf person to try and help someone who is just beginning their journey, to show him that it is possible to lead a full and rewarding life, despite how difficult it seems from his point of view. This is a much softer side of Tuva than we’ve seen before but fear not: the caustic wit and biting remarks are still there, the grumpy demeanour that we all love so much.
Dean examines a number of themes through Ice Town, including the split between traditional news media and the more modern approach of citizen newscasting. What’s interesting here is the difference the police make between the opposing approaches: all of the press conferences held as the body count rises are open to newspaper and television media. Bloggers, podcasters and the like are excluded, despite the fact that the main podcaster on the scene has a reach of over half a million viewers and is a native of Esseberg, something that none of the traditional media can claim. This makes things tense, and immediately sets podcaster Johan up as a protagonist for Tuva, even if not the central protagonist of the novel. Here, too, he looks at how difficult it is for women to do their job and generally get through life:
I read a meme once about how men are afraid women will laugh at them, and women are afraid men will kill them. That thought haunts me to this day.
But more than anything else, Ice Town is an examination of isolation, and the author looks at this on a number of different levels. First, obviously, is the isolation of Esseberg from the rest of the world. Twinned with Whittier, Alaska (from where Dean got the idea for the tunnel that is the sole access to the town), this small town is completely self-contained. One way in or out, which closes at night, the town exists in a state of perpetual shadow, it’s a close-knit community, and seems to be run by the deacon of the local church and the biker gang – the Wolverines – that drink in the local bar, and begin patrolling the streets at night as the novel progresses, and the threat to the town and its inhabitants increases. Next is isolation on a personal level, and here we examine how Tuva has cut herself off from the rest of the world since the death of the love of her life, Noora Ali. This trip to Esseberg is just what she needs, and we do see her begin to re-emerge from her shell as the novel reaches its climax. And finally – and probably moreso than in any of the other Tuva Moodyson novels – Dean looks at how isolating deafness can be. Tuva’s biggest fear is that Peter Hedberg might be shot on sight by the police for not obeying orders, not because he is being rebellious, but because he can’t hear the policeman’s shouted orders. It’s a concept that a hearing person might not ever have considered, but which hits home with a solid thump when Tuva reveals the possibility to us in her narrative.
Will Dean has cited Stephen King as an inspiration on a number of occasions and with Ice Town he finds an excuse to embed a few Easter eggs concerning one of King’s most famous creations.
He ushers me closer to the entrance of the hotel and its revolving doors. I look up at the facade. Stone, in a style I would associate more with Colorado rather than Sweden, and then wood shingles from the second storey upwards. A Scandi version of The Overlook.
Pair this with a visit to room 237 and a photograph on one of the walls, and fans of The Shining will be on the lookout for more.The partly-renovated hotel will play a more important role in Tuva’s life than she could ever have expected. Here she will discover something that will change everything she thought she knew, though we will have to wait for future instalments of the series to find out just how much of an impact it is likely to have.
#TeamTuva will know what to expect from Ice Town, so to them I can say little more than “it’s another brilliant instalment!” If you’ve yet to experience the world of Tuva Moodyson, it might not be the best place to start if you want to get to know everyone’s favourite deaf reporter. But it works well as a standalone novel and showcases a writer who has found his comfort zone with his series character, and who is keen to push that character outside that comfort zone as much as possible to see how she reacts. Ice Town is a dark and claustrophobic crime thriller that pulls the reader in from the outset and demands to be read in a single sitting. Tuva Moodyson is one of the most beloved crime fiction characters in recent years, and Ice Town shows us why that is, developing her character even further with each book. Will Dean’s standalone novels continue to receive rave reviews, but Tuva – and the town of Gavrik – is the reason people keep coming back to him. If you haven’t discovered Tuva yet, now is the time to do so, before she appears on television in the form of Rose Ayling-Ellis. I can guarantee you won’t regret it.
