Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
Deadly Animals, Marie Tierney’s brilliantly plotted debut mystery, introduces readers to Ava Bonney: a 14-year-old English girl obsessed with decomposing bodies.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
John Straley’s nonstop, high-octane Big Breath In introduces the unforgettable Delphine, a 68-year-old cancer patient-turned-investigator.
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The great Richard Price (Clockers, Lush Life) dons a new literary persona as Harry Brandt for this crackling thriller. Haunted NYPD Detective Billy Graves' very name suggests not only his bleak working hours but also a death that landed him on the, well, graveyard shift. Det. Graves is a second-generation cop and had been a rising star until a mishap killed an innocent bystander, leaving Graves with a ghost—a crook that got away.

Several of Graves’ equally dysfunctional co-workers are similarly haunted by these “whites,” bad guys “who had committed criminal obscenities . . . then walked away untouched by justice.” To call these cops flawed would be like describing the Grand Canyon as a mere hole in the ground, but they are also dedicated. Perhaps too much so, as Graves begins connecting the dots when his “white” turns up dead.

The Whites is ultimately not quite as intricate or poetic (or long) as Price’s best work. It is a great read nonetheless, laugh-out-loud funny at times, whether the source of the humor is grim, mundane or—in the case of a handcuffed lawnmower—downright absurd. Price’s best passages are rooted in his peerless urban realism, though he also has lots of fun letting the plot drift away from the realm of strict plausibility. None of this makes The Whites any less entertaining, nor should this obscure genuinely emotional elements of the story, including Graves’ shaky but loving marriage and a touching mystery involving a hematologist.

So long as your tolerance for NYPD lingo (“One PP,” anybody?) is high, and your patience for cops who bend (or obliterate) the rules even higher, The Whites is (either) an impressive debut or a high-octane addition to the already-impressive Price oeuvre.

The great Richard Price (Clockers, Lush Life) dons a new literary persona as Harry Brandt for this crackling thriller. Haunted NYPD Detective Billy Graves' very name suggests not only his bleak working hours but also a death that landed him on the, well, graveyard shift.

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Don’t look for a boilerplate story or predictable characters in Becky Masterman’s surprising second mystery, Fear the Darkness. There’s no letdown after Masterman’s first book, the Edgar Award finalist Rage Against the Dying. Her extraordinary heroine, 59-year-old FBI retiree Brigid Quinn, is front and center for a second time in this surprising thriller.

Who knew that all Quinn’s job-related physical and mental skills would be called into play in her life as a newlywed, as she and hubby Carlos, a priest-turned-philosophy-professor, start to enjoy their days together in sunny Tucson? As a former agent who’s lived a very private and secretive life in many different identities, Quinn is slowly adjusting to being a new wife and to making real friends for the first time. She’s shopping, gossiping, enjoying a glass of wine with new friend Mallory, hiking and attending church socials and local events.

But there are threats in the most unexpected places and hiding just below the surface in the most unlikely people. After her sister-in-law dies following a long illness, Quinn fulfills a promise by taking in her 17-year-old niece, Gemma-Kate. The girl seems oddly unemotional and occasionally disconnected, causing Quinn to wonder whether Gemma-Kate is involved in the odd occurrences that begin to crop up.

The book’s multilayered characters continue to offer surprises, including Mallory’s bedridden husband, Owen, paralyzed in an accident and unable to speak; and Owen’s doctor, Tim Neilsen, and his wan, lost-looking wife, Jacquie. There’s an added sense of menace when she agrees to look into the strange death of the Neilsens’ son, after she picks up a piece of paper on which Jacquie has secretly scribbled “Help me.”

As Quinn’s unease mounts, she begins to wonder whom she can trust. This story thrives on the unexpected and unforeseen, and as tension builds, readers can expect a plot that morphs into something bigger than a curious death or two. There’s something to boggle the mind on nearly every page and a death-defying scene near the finale that’ll curl your hair. The monsters in the shadows—the ones we thought were completely exaggerated—are only too real.

Don’t look for a boilerplate story or predictable characters in Becky Masterman’s surprising second mystery, Fear the Darkness. There’s no letdown after Masterman’s first book, the Edgar Award finalist Rage Against the Dying. Her extraordinary heroine, 59-year-old FBI retiree Brigid Quinn, is front and center for a second time in this surprising thriller.

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Make your reservations now for a European tour like you’ve never experienced. Amy’s Travel has planned a clever caper that puts its participants literally on the road to solving a tantalizing murder mystery. It’s all fun and games until the riddle turns out to mirror a real-life murder. As competing teams scurry from Monte Carlo to Corsica, from Rome to Siena, hidden hints both bewilder them and spur them on to the next destination as they try hilariously to work out the Clue-style murder mystery.

Hy Conrad, award-winning writer and co-executive producer of the popular television series “Monk,” is practiced at nudging the funny bone even as grim events unfold. In this story, serious Amy Abel and her busybody mother Fanny trade exasperated yet affectionate barbs while deciding how to deal with the untimely death of their master mystery writer mid-tour, as well as the ever-escalating needs of their guests.

Just when the tour comes to an end, mystery seemingly solved, Conrad turns the tension up a notch with a real murder within the tour party. The aptly named Ms. Abel could call it a day—after all, her excursion is done—but she troops ever onward, with the help of tourists who refuse to stop sleuthing just because the game is over. This intrepid gang will have you cheering them on at the many twists Conrad throws their way. Even the most careful reader will have trouble dodging all the red herrings and arriving at the solution before Amy herself uncovers the true murderer among them.

Make your reservations now for a European tour like you’ve never experienced. Amy’s Travel has planned a clever caper that puts its participants literally on the road to solving a tantalizing murder mystery. It’s all fun and games until the riddle turns out to mirror a real-life murder. As competing teams scurry from Monte Carlo to Corsica, from Rome to Siena, hidden hints both bewilder them and spur them on to the next destination as they try hilariously to work out the Clue-style murder mystery.

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The members of the Last Death Club are kicking the bucket one by one, some of them practically under the nose of irascible Victorian detective Sidney Grice, in The Curse of the House of Foskett. It’s the second book in M.R.C. Kasasian’s intriguing new series that debuted in 2014 with The Mangle Street Murders, featuring Grice and his young ward, March Middleton, who narrates the books in a most unusual fashion.

Death Club member Horatio Green approaches Grice, asking him to investigate the suspicious passing of one of the club’s original seven members, whose wills collectively stipulate that the last living member will reap all the financial benefits that have accrued in the combined coffers. During the interview, Green suddenly drops dead in Grice’s study, leaving just five members still alive. As March and her guardian begin their investigation, members continue to die in bizarre, unpleasant ways.

Kasasian has a macabre sense of humor, or perhaps it’s just a heightened sense of the macabre. Graphic descriptions can be black enough to corrode the soul—or they may leave you relishing each page, depending on your capacity for unsavory, sometimes tongue-in-cheek details. During a tidy Victorian dinner scene, we learn that the napkin ring is fashioned from a human femur. Floors, handkerchiefs and faces are never clean; the London streets are dark and rainy; one death club member sits in the filth of a decaying mansion, hidden behind a sheen of black gauze. At the same time, each page is shot through with dry humor and clever ripostes, including some humdinger non sequiturs from housemaid Molly.

The book’s period details are impeccable. Each murder is clever and twisty, and the methods employed by the unconventional—one might even say mad—detective duo may leave you shaking, though only occasionally with laughter.

Side stories are engrossing in their own right: the ongoing mystery behind the story of March and her now-dead lover, Edward; hints of a strange past involving Grice and one club member, who happens to be one of the “cursed” members of the titular Foskett family; and the quiet tie growing between March and a police detective she has nearly killed (unintentionally).

Readers alternate between exasperation at these eccentric characters and the desire to read more and more about them in this absorbing and provocative series.

The members of the Last Death Club are kicking the bucket one by one, some of them practically under the nose of irascible Victorian detective Sidney Grice, in The Curse of the House of Foskett. It’s the second book in M.R.C. Kasasian’s intriguing new series that debuted in 2014 with The Mangle Street Murders, featuring Grice and his young ward, March Middleton, who narrates the books in a most unusual fashion.

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It’s no easy feat to cast a German who admits to cheering Hitler’s election as the lead detective in a murder mystery. But readers quickly discover that little is as it seems in this dark historical thriller based on an actual gruesome crime spree that shook Nazi Germany in the months before the U.S. entered World War II.

Georg Heuser, a talented, young detective who emphasizes to the reader that he never technically joined the Nazi party, is teamed up with a grizzled veteran to find the so-called S-Bahn murderer, who not only violently kills women but also seems to get a sexual thrill out of doing so. Ostland alternates between Heuser’s investigation and that of Paula Siebert, who is sent to Europe more than a decade after WWII’s end to look into Nazi war crimes, including Heuser’s. How did the ambitious Heuser—who went to great lengths to distinguish himself from the thuggish Nazis he loathed—become yet another war criminal? That is the question that propels this insightful novel, which makes strong use of historical events and figures to create two compelling narratives.

Author David Thomas occasionally relies too heavily on telling rather than showing (Heuser superfluously describes himself as “filled with ambition and determination”), and the dialogue at times falls flat. But Heuser is an undoubtedly disturbing and fascinating character, while the (fictional) Siebert stands in for the horrified reader as we learn of the inhuman depths to which Heuser, and so many like him, sank in the name of some grotesque program of racial purity. The S-Bahn killings, Thomas makes painfully clear, foreshadowed the more widespread horrors that Heuser and his comrades inflicted on the civilized world.

It’s no easy feat to cast a German who admits to cheering Hitler’s election as the lead detective in a murder mystery. But readers quickly discover that little is as it seems in this dark historical thriller based on an actual gruesome crime spree that shook Nazi Germany in the months before the U.S. entered World War II.

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“When you stopped trying to be one perfect person, you could be many.” A small-town Tennessee girl flourishes into a classic, yet never cliché, femme fatale in Rebecca Scherm’s provocative coming-of-age debut, Unbecoming.

Grace had her siren song down to the perfect ringing notes: prim cardigans, sweet smiles and a melodic laugh capable of enticing anyone. This pristine exterior did well to hide her poor and neglected upbringing, and she fooled even herself—but throughout life and love Grace realized her hands have been too often taunted to touch and possess what is not hers. Perhaps some of us are just born bad, despite all efforts to dispel the wicked. When an art heist goes awry, Grace embraces her darker side and transforms to protect herself. At every new job and in every new city, she’s someone new, her identity stunningly ambiguous. She can never again be “Grace.”

With a well-researched plot and illuminating prose, Unbecoming delivers a character that does and does not evoke sympathy. Grace is slippery, cunning and complex as she evolves into a highbrow jewel bandit living off the grid. Just as she does for herself, Grace remakes the jewelry into something unrecognizable, taking stones from this one and replacing them from that one.

From the high-end art world of New York to the dusty basement of an antiques dealer in France, Unbecoming is an atmospheric adventure from start to finish.

“When you stopped trying to be one perfect person, you could be many.” A small-town Tennessee girl flourishes into a classic, yet never cliché, femme fatale in Rebecca Scherm’s provocative coming-of-age debut, Unbecoming.

Review by

The first book in a new crime series, Winter at the Door introduces Lizzie Snow, a Boston cop turned police chief, now ensconced in the remote town of Bearkill in northern Maine’s Aroostook County, which runs right up against the Canadian border. Bearkill barely manages the necessities with a supermarket, Laundromat, luncheonette and corner bar appropriately named Area 51.

It’s not her first choice for a working venue, but the “grim little town miles from anywhere” may offer a clue to the whereabouts of Lizzie’s young niece, Nicki, who went missing after her mother’s death eight years before. The child’s body was never found, and Lizzie desperately hopes there is substance to a slim lead involving a youngster who’s living somewhere in this area.

Besides adjusting to a new location and searching Maine’s dark corners on her personal quest, Lizzie is confounded by a spate of mysterious crimes and a killer who lurks just out of reach. The deaths are one reason Lizzie’s smart and steady new boss, Sheriff Cody Chevrier, is counting on her fresh eyes to separate what looks like accident from premeditated murder. There are many puzzles to decipher in Winter at the Door, and the primary one is why so many local ex-cops are suddenly meeting an unexpected death.

Another conundrum involves Lizzie’s former lover and the cause of her recent heartbreak, state police detective Dylan Hudson. Dylan is the source of the information on Nicki, but how much substance is there to his timely lead?

This twisted, gritty tale is full of wintry touches, but for all of its atmosphere it takes a surprisingly superficial approach, even with a potentially fascinating cast of characters. Many scenes sacrifice depth and nuance for a screenplay veneer, and Dylan lacks the panache to be a devastatingly attractive lover. Still, the snow-muffled setting works well, leading readers into the heart of a thankless and dangerous darkness, one that will continue to lure as the series progresses.

The first book in a new crime series, Winter at the Door introduces Lizzie Snow, a Boston cop turned police chief, now ensconced in the remote town of Bearkill in northern Maine’s Aroostook County, which runs right up against the Canadian border. Bearkill barely manages the necessities with a supermarket, Laundromat, luncheonette and corner bar appropriately named Area 51.

Review by

We’ve all been there, wondering late at night: Is that tap-tap-tap sound we’re hearing coming from the radiator pipes, or are those footsteps on the stairs? For Evie Jones, the cub reporter and amateur sleuth at the center of Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s chilling psychological thriller, anxious moments like these have become a way of life. The Devil You Know takes readers on a rollercoaster ride through Evie’s desperate efforts to rid herself of the childhood horrors that have followed her into adulthood.

Evie is 22, living alone for the first time in a Toronto apartment and working the crime beat for the local paper. Any young adult starting out this way might feel anxious from time to time. Evie, however, carries some traumatic baggage from childhood: Her best friend, Lianne Gagnon, was raped and murdered when the girls were 11 years old, and the murderer has never been found. Now Evie’s boss has assigned her to research Lianne’s case and the cold cases of several other murdered children, bringing the long-ago nightmare into the present in a very real way.

Writing in an intense stream-of-consciousness style, de Mariaffi takes us tumbling through Evie’s growing obsession with the murderer and her mounting suspicion that he’s not only still alive, but very close by. Evie’s fears seem reasonable, except that she sometimes sees shadows that aren’t really there and remembers things that never really happened. Confabulations, her therapist calls these false memories; her traumatized mind fills in the blanks so convincingly that she doesn’t always know reality from fantasy.

Evie is the ultimate unreliable narrator, yet de Mariaffi puts us right in her head, where we can’t help but sympathize. Most of all, we feel the overwhelming need Evie has to solve this thing, even if it means risking relationships and maybe her own life. By turns panicky and plucky, Evie’s determination eventually wins out, and the pieces of her past come together in a startling but satisfying conclusion.

The Devil You Know is de Mariaffi’s first novel, but she masters the art of pacing and ratchets up the tension page by page throughout Evie’s journey. Fans of psychological thrillers like Gone Girl will root for Evie’s version of the truth right to the end.

We’ve all been there, wondering late at night: Is that tap-tap-tap sound we’re hearing coming from the radiator pipes, or are those footsteps on the stairs? For Evie Jones, the cub reporter and amateur sleuth at the center of Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s chilling psychological thriller, anxious moments like these have become a way of life. The Devil You Know takes readers on a rollercoaster ride through Evie’s desperate efforts to rid herself of the childhood horrors that have followed her into adulthood.

Of the dramatic plot twists that routinely occur in suspense fiction, one character in Harriet Lane’s Her complains that they are “unsatisfying . . . nothing like life, which—it seems to me—turns less on shocks or theatrics than on the small quiet moments, misunderstandings or disappointments, the things that it’s easy to overlook.” Lane’s novel, in which a vengeful woman infiltrates the life of an old acquaintance, features many potential shocks. But Her eschews cheap drama, instead building suspense by shedding light on two women’s inner worlds.

The story is set in motion when Nina Bremner, a 30-something artist, spots Emma Nash pushing a stroller down a busy London street. As a teen, Emma wreaked havoc on Nina’s life with a single thoughtless act. Now Emma doesn’t even remember her—but Nina is obsessed. Using a series of staged coincidences to win her trust, Nina finds the once-carefree blonde stressed and exhausted by the demands of new motherhood. Emma is dazzled by her new friend’s air of freedom and effortless glamour. But Nina’s friendship comes at a cost. She’s actually the ultimate underminer, rifling through Emma’s possessions, ruining her dinner parties and even staging the disappearance of her child.

Narrated in turns by the two women, the book subtly conveys the psychological currents that attract them to each other. Emma longs for a break from the endless small stressors of parenting a difficult toddler—“the headlong conscientious dawn-to-dusk rush to feed and entertain and bathe.” Meanwhile, Nina, whose own life isn’t as perfect as it appears, feels a queasy sense of triumph at seeing a former teen queen reduced to wiping up snot. As the two women grow closer, readers wait to discover the true reason for Nina’s hatred—and how far her revenge will go.

Of the dramatic plot twists that routinely occur in suspense fiction, one character in Harriet Lane’s Her complains that they are “unsatisfying . . . nothing like life, which—it seems to me—turns less on shocks or theatrics than on the small quiet moments, misunderstandings or disappointments, the things that it’s easy to overlook.” Lane’s novel, in which a vengeful woman infiltrates the life of an old acquaintance, features many potential shocks. But Her eschews cheap drama, instead building suspense by shedding light on two women’s inner worlds.

Review by

Tim Johnston’s latest novel has an unusual take on the parent’s-worst-nightmare scenario of child abduction. He doesn’t focus so much on the abductee, Caitlin Courtland, but instead on what Caitlin’s disappearance does to the men in her life.

Caitlin is snatched while the family is on vacation in the Rockies; they’re there partially because it’s a great place for Caitlin, a champion high school runner, to train. The disaster shatters the family almost at once, but things were shaky for the Courtlands even before the kidnapping. Dad Grant was unfaithful to his wife, Angela. Dudley adored his older sister, even though she teased him for being fat and unambitious. Still, both he and Grant are guilt-ridden for not being able to protect her.

Johnston’s women are tangential, but not because he’s one of those male writers who can’t write credible women. With the exception of Angela, who falls to pieces and stays that way for pretty much the whole book, the women are fairly strong, intelligent and well-rounded. Caitlin, during the brief time we see her, is a powerhouse. But it’s the men who demand answers; Caitlin’s abduction is an affront to their manhood, even if they never knew her. They speak in bursts of terse but beautifully rendered dialogue and their thoughts are just as circumspect. Johnston’s equally spare, alluring descriptions of the landscape, the weather, geriatric cars and trucks, farm equipment and firearms recall Annie Proulx.

Both suspenseful and sorrowful, Descent explores what it means to be a man—a husband, a father, a brother, a son, an officer of the law—in an uncertain time.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Tim Johnston’s latest novel has an unusual take on the parent’s-worst-nightmare scenario of child abduction. He doesn’t focus so much on the abductee, Caitlin Courtland, but instead on what Caitlin’s disappearance does to the men in her life.
Review by

The eccentric and purposeful Lady Lavinia Truelove enters her stables early in the morning, unseen by her peers, where she plans to subdue and ride the erratic, untamable Lucifer. She’ll show her husband that she’s a horsewoman to be reckoned with, as well as two sights higher than the woman she thinks may be capturing her husband’s eye.

Moments later, she is dead, neck broken, lying under the horse’s massive hooves. Horrified stable boys rush to sound the alarm.

So begins Enter Pale Death, a 12th installment in Brit author Barbara Cleverly’s Joe Sandilands crime series set in the era between the momentous World Wars. The Scotland Yard assistant commissioner is flummoxed by a death that is surely one of “misadventure” (the stable boys are scarified witnesses), yet seems to have been death by intent, as it becomes apparent that several people stand to benefit from the lady’s sudden demise—husband James included.

Sandilands travels from London to the scene of the crime deep in rural Suffolk on the North Sea coast and makes the acquaintance of Adam Hunnyton, local police chief and character extraordinaire, who wants to use Sandilands’ eyes for a second look at the crime—and various Truelove family members. Sandilands soon discovers that Dorcas, the woman he hopes to marry, was a guest at the Truelove estate on the eve of Lavinia’s death, and to complicate matters, Dorcas is the very woman that James Truelove may have his eye on.  

Cleverly delivers a witty, atmospheric and well-conceived slice of British crime, an old-fashioned country brew that includes a wood haunted by the Wild Green Man of Britain’s pagan past and a treasure trove of equine lore that traces back to an ancient brotherhood of horsemen. One entrancing and colorful encounter takes place in a field as the urbanized Sandilands encounters a herd of prancing, curious horses, and his store of equine knowledge stands him in excellent stead.

At times Cleverly can be a bit too nonchalant and chatty, detracting from the story’s atmosphere, but her marvelous descriptions of country lore and an evocative Suffolk countryside setting provide a taste of all things British and may send curious readers scurrying to the library to learn more about the ancient traditions in this most ancient of lands.

The eccentric and purposeful Lady Lavinia Truelove enters her stables early in the morning, unseen by her peers, where she plans to subdue and ride the erratic, untamable Lucifer. She’ll show her husband that she’s a horsewoman to be reckoned with, as well as two sights higher than the woman she thinks may be capturing her husband’s eye.

Review by

Mr. Heming, the narrator of A Pleasure and a Calling, is more than an uninvited guest: He’s the guest you never knew you had. Channeling the socially detached and unnerving personality of Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, Phil Hogan creates a character that will inspire intrigue as well as ire.

Heming owns the premiere real estate agency in his small English town, which provides him a steady flow of money—and keys to most of its residents’ houses, which he uses to indulge his penchant for snooping. He takes his obsession to sociopathic levels, noting the routines and habits of every house he violates and taking home mementos of his conquests. Heming hides his fetish well, until the day he is caught sneaking through a house after a lovers’ quarrel. Readers will begin to question their own morality as they watch the protagonist go to extreme lengths to cover his tracks.

A Pleasure and a Calling takes readers into the mind of a truly disturbed man and follows the development of his psychosis. Jumping from the present day to Heming’s past, from childhood curiosity and tragedy to the inability to maintain conventional relationships as an adult, the creation of a monster is unveiled.

Hogan’s writing style echoes the creepiness of his main character. The lack of emotional adjectives and use of idiocentric phrases further solidify the darkness of our complicated narrator. This perfectly paced psychological suspense story is a roller-coaster ride through paranoia and manipulation.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Mr. Heming, the narrator of A Pleasure and a Calling, is more than an uninvited guest: He’s the guest you never knew you had. Channeling the socially detached and unnerving personality of Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, Phil Hogan creates a character that will inspire intrigue as well as ire.
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Forty Days without Shadow, by French journalist Olivier Truc, is set in the remote Lapland of northern Norway, where reindeer are the only livelihood for indigenous Sami herders who brave the dark, Arctic winters to keep vigil over their animals, and where the old ways—even ritualized murder—can still hold sway.

Truc’s chilling debut won 15 international awards after its publication in 2012, and it is now available in English, thanks to a compelling translation by Louise Rogers Lalaurie. Translations sometimes have an awkward feel to them at the outset of a book, but as readers continue on, the unusual sentence structure develops a cadence of its own and becomes an integral part of the narrative. Lalaurie’s translation creates a chilling mood that mimics the haunting green glimmer of the Northern Lights.

Senior Sami police officer Klemet Nango and his freshman deputy, Nina Nansen, investigate two crimes: the theft of a unique Sami drum once used by the region’s shamans, whose rituals can be traced back to the area’s oldest mythology; and the brutal murder of an old reindeer herder. The detective team’s radically different backgrounds and approaches to the murder scene, in a setting full of omens and danger, make for a fascinating juxtaposition of old and new ways. Old practices clash with conservative Lutheran groups and geologists who are out to exploit the region’s vast mineral reserves for plunder and profit.

The book’s title describes a seminal moment in far northern Lapland, as 40 days without any sunlight to cast a shadow slowly give way to a magical, goose pimple-raising sequence when the community gathers to watch the sun appear once more over the horizon: “Everyone fixed their gaze on the horizon. The magnificent gleam intensified, reflecting more and more brightly. . . . Now, a bright, trembling halo of light blurred the point on the horizon at which everyone was gazing. . . . The sun had kept its word.”

A dramatic snowbound setting mixes with unexpected touches of humor to make this book one of the most riveting of the season.

Forty Days without Shadow, by French journalist Olivier Truc, is set in the remote Lapland of northern Norway, where reindeer are the only livelihood for indigenous Sami herders who brave the dark, Arctic winters to keep vigil over their animals, and where the old ways—even ritualized murder—can still hold sway.

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