Red Snow, Will Dean

“The liquorice eyes shine in the sporadic artificial light and I can see the capital ‘G’ on each coin and I can see the stoat features of this poor, scared man. His mouth is wide open like he’s in agony. He has small ears set back and he has tufty whiskers. It’s the man from the canteen. Attacked. Bled out. Murdered.”

Tuva Moodyson returns in the second Will Dean novel, Red Snow. It’s February and Gavrik is in the depths of snow season. The events of the previous October are still raw and not all the locals have forgiven Tuva for her part in the solving of the Medusa murders. Tuva however is happy because she will soon say goodbye to small town Gavrik and move south to a new job at a bigger newspaper near Malmö. When Tuva witnesses the suicide of Gustav Grimberg, the head of the giant Grimberg Liquorice factory which, both physically and economically, dominates the town she’s itching to write one final story before leaving. This won’t be easy because the Grimberg’s are notoriously secretive so when Tuva is approached to do some research for a book on the family and the factory she thinks she’s found a way in. The only question is, once she’s in will Tuva come out alive?

Like Dark Pines the physical environment plays a big part in Red Snow.The wet slippery tracks of October have been replaced by snow and ice and I really enjoyed the descriptions of what it’s like living in a Swedish winter. Tuva’s deafness is also ever present as is the day to day routines required to maintain her hearing aids. But what of Tuva herself? At the conclusion of my review of the first Tuva Moodyson novel, Dark Pines, I wrote that Tuva was a character that you’ll want to spend more time with in future. By the end of Red Snowthis feeling doesn’t change, in fact it’s probably stronger. Tuva is determined, has an easy ability to get people to talk to her and also when needed, sharp tongued. She is not however without fault, her determination can sometimes be impetuous and her sharp tongue can also make a rash judgement. Those good traits and bad are what makes Tuva such a great character and I’m certainly looking to reading the next Tuva Moodyson novel.