Hey, you guys! Guess what! I have illustrations for this post!
The Land of Dreams was originally published in Norway in 2008 and only just appeared in the U.S., translated by Tiina Nunnally, this year. What a shame, since it's the first in a trilogy called the "Minnesota trilogy" and set on the North Shore of Lake Superior. It's sort of a murder mystery, part of the Scandinavian crime novel scene, and yet that's only part of the book.
It opens with "forest cop" (police officer for Superior National Forest) Lance Hansen discovering the site of a gruesome murder at this location:
Father Baraga's Cross near Tofte. Kind of a striking backdrop for a murder, no?
Lance isn't directly involved in the murder investigation, as the murder victim is a Norwegian tourist, so the case goes to the FBI and to a detective from Norway, who tells part of the story. But finding the murder scene sends Lance, a historian by avocation, searching through the community's history to see what other murder may ever have happened, and in doing so he uncovers some very uncomfortable truths about his own family.
Along the way, he shares a great deal of history specific to the North Shore--perhaps more than necessary, although it's very vivid. And lots of description of places like this:
And this, Grand Portage National Monument:
I wanted to like this book more than I did--and I did like it--but the pacing was really slow in spots, and some of Lance's actions were head-scratchers, not justified by the characterization. That said, I so enjoyed author Sundstol's vivid writing about this beautiful part of my home state. Norwegian himself, Sundstol lived on the North Shore for two years, and he totally gets it, the place and the people. So I'll happily look for the next instalments of the trilogy, which hopefully won't take five more years to arrive.