The Blood Spilt by Asa Larsson

The Blood Spilt

Asa Larsson

Peopled by realistic characters in an evocative northern Scandinavian setting, this unexpectedly lyrical whodunit kept me guessing right to the end. Add some topical social issues to the mix and you’ve got an interesting and unusual thriller. You may want to keep an eye out for Rebecka Martinsson's first appearance - in The Savage Altar - but this one works fine as a stand-alone read.

Extract
Rebecka Martinsson was walking down toward the bar. Behind her, the forest was talking. Come over here, it said. Come and walk deep inside. I am endless.
She could imagine that walk.
Slender pines of beaten copper. The wind high up in the crown of the trees sounds like rushing water. Firs that look charred and blackened, covered in beard lichen. The sound of her steps: the rustle of dry reindeer lichen and organ-pipe lichen, the crunch of the pine-cones eaten by the woodpecker. Sometimes you walk on a soft carpet of needles along an animal track. All you hear then is the sound of thin twigs cracking beneath your feet.
Parallels
  • The Wallander books by Henning Mankell
  • The Messenger of Athens by Anne Zouroudi