Faroese detective Hjalti Hentze is initially called out to deal with an apparent suicide at Muli on the island of Eysturoy, but his case morphs into something far more serious when the skeleton of a woman is discovered half dug up from under a stone walled sheepfold nearby. Hentze finds old records indicating that a Norwegian woman and her young daughter had been reported missing 40 years ago from a notorious commune at Muli, run by a Danish man, Rasmus Matzen, on land owned by the dead man, Boas Justesen.
Nobody mourns Justesen's death, but some still remember his fascination with the Danish hippies who briefly occupied Muli in the 1970s, so Hentze decides to do some digging into the past, even though the local force is short on manpower and money after recent events (related in a previous book, The Killing Bay).
Meanwhile British homicide investigator Jan Reyna is still looking for answers for his mother’s suicide in 1976. Lydia Reyna had taken Jan and run away from her husband and her life on the Faroes, to Denmark. And there she had committed suicide, leaving four-year-old Jan alone in the flat. Although he has no recollection of what happened, and even though he was rescued and adopted by his mother's sister and her husband in England, it's clear that this early trauma has cast a profound shadow over Jan's life.
These two major subplots of the novel intertwine until the reader realizes that Reyna's personal quest and Hentze's investigation into the past are coalescing into a a single arc of horrific crimes spanning forty years.
Chris Ould combines the psychological suspense of British thrillers with the spare narrative and atmospheric style of Nordic Noir. Reyna and Hentze are very different in their approach to investigation, but those very differences make them better and stronger as partners in the search for truth and justice for the victims.
Ould has thoroughly researched the geography and history of the Faroes Islands All the locations, both Danish and Faroese, are vivid and tangible, grounding the novels with an authentic sense of place. This would make a great series for Masterpiece Mystery.
The three books of the Faroes trilogy --- The Blood Strand, The Killing Bay, and The Fire Pit --- are best read in sequence as the story lines all overlap. Ould says he is moving on to other projects now but hints that he may return to the Faroes at some future date. May that time come soon!
Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.
Click HERE to read a review from Crimefictionlover.com
Click HERE to read a review from The Crime Review.com
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