Only the Dead by Vidar Sundstøl

Category: 50 Books

onlythedead

This is the second book in Vidar Sunstøl’s Minnesota Trilogy. The first was The Land of Dreams, and I suggest you read that first. Only the Dead would not be as enjoyable going into it with no previous knowledge of the mystery or the flashbacks. This one picks up a couple of months after the first book and continues with Lance Hansen thinking that his brother may or may not have murdered a Norwegian tourist.

This book is much shorter, but it’s the perfect length because the story is so intense. Lance and his brother, Andy, go hunting like they do every year, only this year Lance doesn’t trust Andy. So the hunting scenes become so emotionally heightened because is Lance right about his brother, or is he just paranoid? Then, to make things even more frenzied, the weather is below freezing so the rain turns the forest into ice, and I swear to you that the writing is so good that I was shivering in my comfy chair WITH A BLANKET.

The historical flashbacks in the book also pick up with the ones from the first book with the mystery of what happened to the Ojibwe native, Swamper Caribou. And that story is also filled with freezing weather so you get no relief from vivid descriptions of extreme cold. But like I said, since the book is only about 150 pages, it’s the perfect length, any longer would be too harsh.

The writing was so good, the story so intense that I’m not even upset by the cliffhanger ending. I’m so excited for the next book I cannot WAIT to see how both of the stories turn out.

 

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