The 4th in the Tuva Moodyson series, and Tuva is back in Gavrick, but her beat now extends to a town up the road, the hill town of Visberg. In fact, the story opens with Tuva visiting the town and after hearing a cry for help in the woods, discovering a headless corpse.
Will Dean’s strength is in his conjuring of eccentric characters. In the previous three novels he’s filled Gavrik and the surrounding woods with such people, and now he populates Visberg with more. And his best creation of all returns in this novel: the wood carving sisters, complete with their gruesome trolls.
Visberg is a town of secrets, not least its sinister festival of Pan Night, where the townsfolk all get together to engage in cult-like behaviours. And then there’s the no-questions asked storage facility. Indeed, while the plot of the novel is compelling, it’s this characterisation and environment which places Dean’s books a cut above the rest. There’s plenty here for future novels too, and I imagine Visberg will return to fill the pages of a good few Tuva Moodyson books yet.
4 out of 5 stars
