Title: BAD APPLES
Author: Will Dean
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Read: August 2021
Expected publication: 7 October 2021
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Book Description:
It only takes one...
A murder
A resident of small-town Visberg is found decapitated
A festival
A cultish hilltop community ‘celebrates’ Pan Night after the apple harvest
A race against time
As Visberg closes ranks to keep its deadly secrets, there could not be a worse
time for Tuva Moodyson to arrive as deputy editor of the local newspaper.
Powerful forces are at play and no one dares speak out. But Tuva senses the
story of her career, unaware that perhaps she is the story…
My musings:
If you’re looking for a creepy thriller with a
gloomy, atmospheric setting this Halloween, then look no further! Noone writes
a creepy forest better than Will Dean.
I’ve been a fan of the Tuva Moodyson
series since the start and snapped up the book as soon as I could press
“request” on Netgalley (thank you so much for granting me my wish!). Tuva, a
journalist in a small remote Swedish town, stumbles once again into disaster
when she comes across a decapitated corpse in the creepy forest surrounding the
town. Even though it’s hard to believe, things go even further downhill from
here. I love the way Dean’s mind works, and how he manages to create sinister
scenes out of seemingly harmless everyday situations. For example, the image of
the child biting into a rotten apple (mind the book’s title) was so creepy I am
still thinking about it, and this was nothing compared to Dean’s other
creations: the sinister trolls carved by the two creepy sisters, the balloons
made out of animal intestines, the stuffed animals with dental work, a forest
teeming with slugs and poisonous mushrooms etc etc. Dean writes in a way that
brings all these nightmarish images to life like a dark creepy movie, and I
loved every minute of it!
Dean has run with the Halloween
topic and made it firmly his own. Though Halloween is celebrated by the
children in Gavrik, the small neighbouring hilltown of Visberg has their own
dark tradition: Pan Night. It makes Halloween a candyland paradise in
comparison, because the happenings on Pan Night, to which only locals are
invited, are very sinister indeed. And of course Tuva, who can never resist
putting herself in danger, manages a sneak peak that will almost be her
undoing.
Tuva is one of my favourite
characters in crime fiction. Even though she is one tough cookie, Dean also
manages to paint her vulnerable side: the grief for her deceased parents, her
addictions, her deafness, her struggles with her sexuality. I was happy to see
that she has not only made some great friends in Gavrik, but has also found
love with Noora, grounding her somewhat. Being a journalist rather than a
detective, Tuva leads us into the murder investigation from a completely
different angle, which makes this series extra special to me.
Summary:
All in all, BAD APPLES is another deliciously dark
instalment in Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson series, and maybe his creepiest yet?
And even though he ending was wayyyyy out there, I loved the reel of dark and
spooky images the book created in my mind. Coming out just in time for
Halloween it’s the perfect spooky read to get into the spirit of the season –
if you haven’t discovered this series yet, what are you waiting for?
Thank
you to Netgalley and Oneworld Publications for the free electronic copy of this
novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.
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