Red Snow by Will Dean

This is the author’s second novel, a sequel to his debut, Dark Pines, which I reviewed here: https://bit.ly/2sfCeEM.  One again we’re with Tuva Moodyson, an outsider in the very insular rural town of Gavrik, working as a reporter on the local paper. She’s also deaf and bisexual, both of which, in a place like Gavrik, mark her out as “different.” Isolated, Tuva has few friends, Tammy who runs a Thai food business from a van, her boss Lena at work. So, Tuva drinks too much and pretty much hides away from the world.

But Tuva is on the cusp of leaving Gavrik. She’s been offered a better job on a biweekly paper down south. Covering a bigger patch, it’s a step up on the small local for which she currently works. Not that her time on the Gavrikposten has been sedate. In Dark Pines she became embroiled in the Medusa killings, exposing a serial killer, though things have quietened down since then.

Red Snow opens with the owner of the town’s main employer, the liquorice factory, jumping to his death before Tuva’s eyes. The man had climbed one of the factory’s chimneys and leapt. Tuva starts covering his death and its ramifications for the paper. This leads her to meet the family which has owned the factory since it was first established generations ago. The Grimbergs are as odd as can be and come with lots of baggage.

While doing this, Tuva takes a job on the side as a researcher for David Holmqvist, a character we met in the first novel. Holmqvist lives in the nearby forest and is ostracised by locals who see him as weird. He’s a writer and wants Tuva’s help researching his book on the factory and the Grimbergs, for the family have not opened up to him.

As mentioned, Dark Pines was in essence a serial killer novel, though it wasn’t gory. Rather, its power was in the incredible sense of place and characterisation it made use of. Much of the narrative took part outside of Gavrik, in the nearby forest where Holmqvist lives. There was a cast of intriguing, strange, and downright creepy characters who lived in that stretch of woodland. Apart from the writer, Holmqvist, there was Viggo Svensson the taxi driver, and the wood carving sisters. Both Svensson and the wood carving sisters have small parts in Red Snow, but this sequel shifts to the town itself.

Red Snow is not a serial killer novel. I won’t say any more at risk of divulging spoilers, but this book shifts gear from Dark Pines. Once again however, the real power of this title is in the sense of place and characterisation. Whereas in Dark Pines one had the foreboding darkness and claustrophobia of the forest, here we have the rather gothic confines of the liquorice factory and the family residence in the floors above. Whereas Dark Pines had the oddballs who live in the wood, Red Snow has the eccentricities of the three generations of Grimbergs, a handful of embittered workers, and those sniffing around on the periphery in the hope of a payday.

I wrote in my review of Dark Pines that I was worried the author might not be able to take his character anywhere new, that what made the novel fresh would soon turn stale in repeat outings. Many an author has made that mistake, especially when their protagonist is situated in a small town. How many fictional detectives encounter murder rates in villages that would make the police departments of major metropolises squirm? In Red Snow, Will Dean has proven that this is not an error he intends to make. Most cleverly, by changing gears and writing a different kind of crime novel altogether (Dark Pines being a serial killer tale, Red Snow being more of a mystery story) he’s shown that he’s an author that’s adaptable and varied. By situating Red Snow in Gavrik and the liquorice factory, and Dark Pines in the surrounding woods, he’s also imbued the two novels with very different atmospherics, despite the fact that geographically their locations are very close.

I don’t how many novels in the series the author has planned, whether he sees it as a trilogy or more. On Twitter he’s promised that we haven’t seen the last of Tuva and I believe the third novel is well on the way. With Tuva set on leaving Gavrik, it will be interesting to see what comes next. Will he have his protagonist return to the rural and insular community of Dark Pines and Red Snow? If he does, I’m sure he can mine new stories, and it would certainly be a pleasure to encounter such memorable characters from the first novel, such as the Wood Carving Sisters. Or might he make the bold move of casting Tuva in locations new? Whatever he decides, on the strength of what he’s written so far, I’m sure it will be a success.

5 out of 5 stars