Tuva Moodyson Mystery Series 3 Books Collection Set By Will Dean (Dark Pines, Red Snow, Black River)

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Dark Pines, the first novel in the series, is being adapted by screenwriter and award-winning playwright Charlotte Jones (The Halcyon, Without You) into a six-part returning crime thriller series with “an iconic heroine at its heart: the thrillingly modern, utterly original, deaf journalist Tuva Moodyson.” Tuva Moodyson is now on my list of favourite characters- no doubt about that! After leaving London to help her mother, Tuva finds herself working in a small town newspaper office as a reporter. Tuva is deaf – though she can hear with the use of hearing aids. I love how she switches off her hearing aids when she wants to shut out the world. I also loved that she was determined that her hearing impairment doesn’t define her. I suspect there is a lot more for the reader to learn about this character, especially relating to her life in London as we really only scratch the surface – Eeeek! I can’t wait! Bad Apples is noir at its very best… If you like “heart in your mouth” reads that will keep you up all night with all the lights on, then this is for you.’

The Tuva Moodyson series remains one of my favourite crime series and one I can’t get enough of. I hope that we will see a lot more of Tuva in future. I love a story that transports me to an unfamiliar place. The author brilliantly evokes the land, painting vivid word pictures of its dark vast forests of spruce, pine and birch, its damp bogs and marshes, the mud underfoot, the rain, sleet, and patches of snow. I felt immersed in its moist, claustrophobic atmosphere. It is probably a place I won’t want to visit anytime soon. Will Dean builds tension like no-one else I read. (The Last Thing to Burn is a showcase in tension and introduced me to Tuva. What a leap.) I've been hanging off the edge of the cliff that Bad Apples left me on last September with preconceptions of where Will Dean would take us next and was proved so beautifully and perfectly wrong. Bad Apples is a chilling outing for Tuva Moodyson – unsettling from beginning to the very end, but leavened with dark humour. A compelling thriller that devoted fans and new readers will adore.’ This is my first Tuva Moodyson (I hadn't realised it was a series) although I've read Will Dean's excellent work previously. I have to say it's not essential that you read the earlier ones but I always like to start at the beginning. I think in this case it might help.I guessed the identity of the killer, because I kind of sensed the way Dean wrote about them, building them was a bit more meticulous than the other characters, but overall I really enjoyed this story. The twist here being that the author – Will Dean – is not a Scandinavian but an Englishman living in Scandinavia, in fact in a wooden house he has built in a vast elk forest. Dark Pines by Will Dean is a pretty good thriller and whodunnit. You know one of those stories where you’re thinking about who the culprit is while you’re doing other things. The only other Will Dean book I’ve read is The Last Thing to Burn, which was good too – I gave that one 4 stars. And across both are laid a local strip club (and former brothel) and rumours of the activities of a high-stakes poker group – all of which emerge to Tuva and the reader as possible clues to the resolution of the new series of murders that are striking the town – all it seems of family-men hunters and all mutilated for their eyes.

The remote Swedish countryside in which this series is set is almost as major a character as Tuva herself. Filled with dark, menacing forests, it adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere Will Dean has created. And if you think that Rose Farm is a spot of brightness in the landscape, you might need to think again. It has a dark past, and is now a closed community, home to a half dozen survivalists. Nothing important is described in any detail at all. At times we go for whole chapters without being reminded of what's actually at stake. There is no sense of impending danger at all, because there is no craft in the description of the crimes.My head hits a wall. The flat tunnel closes in and I realise there is no other end. This is a one way journey. Are these murders linked to The Medusa murders 20 years ago? The police failed to find the culprit for these crimes, so is this person still at large? By the way, those victims had their eyes removed as well. There are some genuinely suspenseful passages, often in the woods. But I found the ‘little wooden trolls’ a bit troublesome. See, the spooky sisters who made these trolls use real fingernails, animal tongues, human hair and the like – they sound horrible. Life goes on” as the saying goes, and it’s the same for Tuva. She soon stumbles upon a curious case. A 20-year-old woman, Elsa Nyberg, a resident of an elusive Rose Farm, goes missing. Tuva is an astute journalist, dedicated to the Gavrik Posten. She gains unique access to the residents and of course soon finds herself in danger as she tries to expose the truth and identify the culprit with the sometimes reluctant help of the local police.

Rose Ayling-Ellis said: “ I can’t wait to get started on Tuva! As soon as I read Charlotte’s scripts and then dived further into Will’s books, I just knew this was a role I wanted to play and a world I wanted to explore! It’s especially exciting for me to bring this to life alongside other deaf characters. This is a dream team to work with and I’ve no doubts this will be a story that everyone will enjoy!”Dark Pines is more than just a crime thriller, it’s a story full of quirky characters with depth set in an atmospheric and creepy surrounding.