The Land of Dreams by Vidar Sundstol

Category: 50 Books

landofdreams

Scandi crime that takes place in Minnesota? Could this be as good as regular Scandi crime, with its use of landscape, tight mysteries involving history, and a slight hint of the supernatural?

Yes! Oh my gosh, yes!

This book was first released in Norway in 2008 and won the Riverton Prize for Best Norwegian Crime Fiction. So really, you don’t need me to tell you that this book is top-notch. But you guys? This book is top-notch.

This is the first in a trilogy set in a small Minnesota town on Lake Superior. Lance Hansen is a U.S. forest officer and local historian who finds a dead Norwegian tourist. Eirik Nyland is a detective from Norway sent to investigate along with the local authorities.

Sundstol makes wonderful use of the landscape as well as the history of the area, including the Native American history.  While Nyland is working on the recent murder investigation, Hansen, who found the body, is not involved in the investigation, but being the local historian he starts looking into a similar crime that happened 100 years earlier in the same area. The mix of the early Norwegian settlers and the native Ojibwe tribal history is excellent (as far as accuracy, I’ve no idea, but it made for good reading.).  I thought mixing the two might be too confusing, or rather, I’d have to remember too many things, but no, the storytelling is great.

This isn’t exactly a typical police procedural either. The murder investigation is peripheral to the real story, which, I’m not exactly clear what that is. This is not to say that it’s confusing, it’s just incomplete. This is the first book in a trilogy and while there is an ending to the first book, you can tell that it’s setting up the second book. Usually I’d feel cheated, but the author is telling a story is so massive, and so well-paced, that I can’t wait for the second book. This book isn’t a thriller nor action packed, so I could see how some people might lose their patience reading it. But it really is a great piece of storytelling, and I enjoyed the relaxed pace.

This book is available October 7, 2013.

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