Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Like the central movement of a dark Grieg symphony, this brief second installment of Norwegian author Sundstol's Minnesota Trilogy resounds with two stunning variations on a single theme: the complex motivations behind murders that link brotherhood, love, and death. In the first book, 2013's The Land of Dreams, forest ranger Lance Hansen, an insecure amateur historian, and his brother, Andy, set out on their annual November deer hunt on the North Shore of Lake Superior. When Lance checked out a report of an illegally pitched tent near the lake, he discovered the battered body of a Norwegian tourist. Shortly beforehand, Lance saw Andy near the crime scene. Now, as Lance's relationship with his brother frays, he is consumed by a maelstrom of suspicion and fear that parallels Sundstol's eerie interpolated recollections of Lance's distant relative, the pietistic Lutheran immigrant boy Thormod Olson, on a harrowing winter trek in search of the American dream more than a century earlier. As an ice storm builds around him, Lance's emotional stability is shattered by the waking nightmares of a ghostly Ojibwe medicine man who mysteriously vanished from the same forest years earlier. Readers will eagerly await The Ravens, the trilogy's conclusion. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
When U.S. Forest Service officer and amateur local historian Lance Hansen discovers a dead Norwegian tourist at a campsite on the north shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota, he suspects his brother Andy is the culprit, but he has no evidence to arrest him. Four months later, the brothers set out for their annual deer hunting trip, which takes them near the site of the homicide. As they track deer, Andy's odd behavior makes Lance doubt his brother's alibi. Intertwined with the present-day story of the Hansens' hunting trip is a century-old tale of the disappearance of an Objibwe medicine man and his connection to a Norwegian immigrant, a distant relation to the Hansens. Verdict Sundstol's outstanding second entry in his acclaimed "Minnesota Trilogy" (after Land of the Dead) measures up to the first installment with its quick pace and succinct plot. Fans of Camilla Läckberg's crime novels and mysteries with a Minnesota setting will enjoy reading this chilling psychological thriller. Nunnally's translation is excellent and accessible to an American audience. The third installment in the trilogy, The Ravens, is forthcoming.-Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A police officer and his brother play cat and mouse in a frozen forest. Lance Hansen is still haunted by his last case, a Norwegian tourist found murdered on the shores of Lake Superior (The Land of Dreams, 2013, etc.). Although an Ojibwe man has been arrested, Hansen can't shake his fear that his brother, Andy, is the murderer. Now they're out in the woods together on their annual deer hunt, and Hansen's mind wanders to the murder and to the fact that he's now unable to dream; he recalls dreams from the past and his childhood with a difficult father. Andy accuses Hansen of breaking into his cottage, and the tension between them escalates to the point that Hansen feels Andy may be planning to kill him. Generations ago, their ancestor Thormod Olson may have killed an Ojibwe, Swamper Caribou, in the same area as the recent murder. The story of Thormod's desperate struggles alone in a frozen wilderness and how he came to kill Swamper Caribou is told against the background of the present-day deer hunt occurring amid similar circumstances. Although their suspicions and fear of each other harden, Hansen and his brother continue their hunt, carefully keeping track of each other even as Hansen seems to be suspended in a dream world where the past and present merge. The second in the Minnesota Trilogy, this slim volume is so exquisitely written, lyrically descriptive and mystically mysterious it could stand on its own, but to understand all the nuances it's best read as part of the trilogy. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
