Title: THE GIRL WITHOUT SKIN
Expected publication: out now
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Description:
When a mummified Viking corpse is discovered in a crevasse
out on the edge of an ice sheet, journalist Matthew Cave is sent to cover the
story. The next day the mummy is gone, and the body of the policeman who was
keeping watch is found naked and flayed—exactly like the victims in a gruesome
series of murders that terrified the remote town of Nuuk in the 1970s.
As Matt investigates, he is shocked by the deprivation and
brutal violence the locals take for granted. Unable to trust the police, he
begins to suspect a cover-up. It’s only when he meets a young Inuit woman,
Tupaarnaq, convicted of killing her parents and two small sisters, that Matt
starts to realise how deep this story goes—and how much danger he is in.
My musings:
As the title suggests – this book is not for the faint of
heart! I love a good Nordic thriller, and THE GIRL WITHOUT SKIN has every
element that characterises the genre: a haunting atmospheric setting, a
somewhat bleak atmosphere, gruesome crimes and two main characters scarred by
their tragic back stories.
This is the first book set in Greenland for me, and though I
thought that the setting was fantastic and starred as a character in its own
right, it is no travel brochure. Nordbo, who has lived in Nuuk for many years,
gives a chilling account of life in this remote place. There are many trigger
warnings here, so if you are sensitive to topics of domestic violence, rape,
incest and child abuse you should enter this one cautiously. For me, novels
that are not afraid to expose the sinister side of society and offer some
social criticism add some depth and meaning to my reading experience, and I
feel that I learned something about life on one of the most remote places on
earth.
Nordbo tells his story through the eyes of two main characters
and two separate timelines 40 or so years apart. When the unsolved crimes of
the past rear their ugly heads again in the present, troubled journalist Matt
Cave becomes entangled in the investigation. Matt is an enigmatic, genuine and
tragic character I warmed to immediately. Having lost his wife and unborn child
in a terrible car accident, he is haunted by demons and the hopelessness that
follows grief. Perhaps it is this that makes him somewhat fearless to expose crimes
and corruption even if it comes at great risk to his own personal safety. And
be assured, the people in this novel who want the past to stay hidden are
ruthless in their pursuit! Seeing how people with demons tend to gravitate towards
each other, it is no surprise that Matthew feels drawn to a young woman,
Tupaarnaq, whose tragic childhood and past abuse have made her determined in
the way that people who have little to lose sometimes become. Tupaarnaq, who is
on a similar mission to seek justice for past wrongs, soon becomes a valuable ally
to Matt. As other reviewers have mentioned, Tupaarnaq, who is tough on the
outside but also strangely vulnerable, reminded me of Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth
Salander, and she added much to the story for me.
The second main character is Jacob, who is a police officer
in Nuuk in the 1970’s, following up on reports of alleged incest and child
abuse that is rife in society at the time, and which everyone is eager to
ignore. A spade of horrific murders seems to follow his investigation, and the
hierarchy are determined to shut him down. But Jacob has become close to one of
the victims, and is determined to help her at all cost – which will put him
right in the path of the killer.
When a body is found in an ice crevasse that bears the same
MO as the murders in the 1970’s the two timelines connect, and we are being
taken on a chilling and spine tingling story of corruption, murder and survival
in the one of the harshest landscapes on Earth.
Summary:
All in all, THE GIRL WITHOUT SKIN was an honestly brutal, chilling and yet utterly captivating book set against the haunting backdrop of one of the bleakest and most remote landscapes on Earth. It features everything I have come to expect in a good Nordic thriller, and swiftly drew me into its world like only very skilled writers accomplish with such ease. I very much look forward to the next book in the series, which I believe will be published later this year.
Thank
you to Netgalley and Text Publishing for the free electronic copy of this novel and
for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
Sounds terrific, adding to my wishlist:)
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