The Blurb
A murder
A resident of small-town Visberg is found decapitated in the forest
A festival
An isolated hilltop community celebrates ’Pan Night’ after the apple harvest
A race against time
As Visberg closes ranks, there could not be a worse time for Tuva Moodyson to arrive as deputy editor of the local newspaper. Tuva senses the scoop of her career, unaware perhaps that she is the story…
Set in Sweden’s Halloween season, when the forests are full of elk hunters and the town of Visberg is thick with the aroma of rotting fruit, BAD APPLES is a thrilling introduction for readers new to the series, and for die-hard #TeamTuva fans, a heart-stopping rollercoaster
My Review
Hands down the best thriller I have read in a very long time and in my opinion the best Will Dean Team Tuva novel yet.
Dean did not mess about and threw us straight into the action, a decapitated body and Tuva right at the centre. What more could she want as the new deputy editor of the local newspaper than a story quite literally thrown into her lap. But it wasn’t her usual haunt, Gavrid she found herself in but the small town of Visberg.
Visberg must have come from a very dark, hidden place in Dean’s imagination, a town you would not want to live in unless your character traits were off the wall and definitely not normal.
First there was the steepness of the hill at the towns entrance, a deterrent, a natural block. The town square, overshadowed by the statue of its greatest resident Alfred Edlund, the family that ruled with their wealth. The apple trees and the pervading smell of rotten apples would be a sense that stayed with me for a long time. The atmospheric narrative, mist that swirled, the forest that pressed down from all around was nothing but brilliant. Dean’s master stroke had to be its residents, the clock shop owner, the twins Cornelia and Alice, their hideous troll creations, the gaming twins, Margaret and Emil owners of the mysterious storage units, the shelf styled Sheriff, trumped up leader of the local neighbourhood watch. Above them all, the Edlunds who literally owned the town with their wealth, arms like tentacles that spread far and wide.
Dean thrust Tuva straight in as she battled for information on the dead resident, as she attempted to infiltrate the impenetrable wall that surrounded the town. Dean didn’t make it easy for the reader, multiple suspects, multiple motives. Then Pan Night their own particular Hallowe’en a night neither Tuva or the reader would forget. Again Dean pushed our imagination, the scenes bizarre, disturbing, the ending shocking.
More leads, more dead ends, Halloween night itself the catalyst for Dean’s finale, and a warning from this reader to be afraid, for your worst nightmare to be laid bare on the page, Dean’s narrative once again brutal, but somehow mesmerising, chilling, horrifying.
Would Tuva emerge from the nightmare, would we finally know the perpetrators, the truth?
Whatever you expected, Dean twisted, turned it around, the final page jaw dropping, this reader desperate for the next instalment.
Will Dean, you have surpassed yourself, Bad Apples was superb, no superlatives adequate to describe my feelings, my thoughts.
I would like to thank Point Blank Crime for a copy of Bad Apples to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour.
About the author
WILL DEAN grew up in the East Midlands and lived in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. His debut novel, Dark Pines, was selected for Zoe Ball’s Book Club, shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize and named a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. The second Tuva Moodyson thriller, Red Snow, won ‘Best Independent Voice’ at the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards, 2019, and was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2020. The third novel, Black River, has been longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021. Rights for the series have been sold in eight territories (France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Poland, Czech Republic, China and Turkey). Will lives in Sweden where the Tuva Moodyson novels are set.
TV Rights to Dark Pines have been optioned by Lionsgate, the producers of Mad Men, with plans for a multi-part series featuring Tuva Moodyson.
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