Review of THIRTY DAYS OF DARKNESS by Jenny Lund Madsen

3 Stars

This book has received many positive reviews, so I’m in the minority, but it just didn’t resonate with me.  As I was reading, I kept thinking that it was intended as a parody of crime fiction, since it offers little that is original and relies so heavily on the tropes of that genre.  But the book is being marketed as the first in a new series?

Hannah Krause-Bendix is an established literary writer in Denmark.  Though disdainful of crime fiction, she accepts the challenge to write a crime novel in 30 days.  Her editor sends her to a remote village in Iceland where she is the houseguest of a woman named Ella.  Shortly after Hannah’s arrival, the body of Thor, Ella’s nephew, is pulled from the water.  Looking for inspiration, Hannah inserts herself into the investigation.

Hannah is not a likeable character.  She is a judgmental, arrogant, and rude.  She behaves appallingly, even breaking into her host’s study, though she hopes that Ella won’t notice her vandalism.  When she starts investigating, she proves to be rash, insensitive, and inept.  The author goes to lengths to show that Hannah does experience personal growth:  she becomes less standoffish both personally and professionally.  She becomes less self-centred, even starting to show concern for others, and less dismissive of commercial fiction.  My problem is not an unlikeable protagonist but the fact that she is 45 years of age.  Some of her behaviour is more appropriate to a teenager than a middle-aged person.    

I understand that some readers find comfort in the use of the tropes of crime fiction, but I found that this book follows so many of them that the book feels imitative and unoriginal.  Of course, Hannah is going to have a drinking problem.  Of course Viktor, the town’s sole policeman, is not going to be up to the task.  Of course there will be a blizzard which will isolate the town.  More than once I thought of Trapped.  The only thing that surprised me is that Hannah doesn’t research these tropes to help her in her writing.    

More than one event stretched my credulity.  We are supposed to accept the arrival of Hannah’s nemesis in this remote town as plausible?  Vigdis and Ella are supposed to be close, yet Vigdis knows so little about her sister?  Seriously injured people are able to undertake physically demanding tasks?  Some of the murderer’s actions seem ridiculous and the motive for so much mayhem seems weak:  the killer’s willingness to kill someone who was so obviously also a victim makes no sense. 

I love Nordic crime fiction, but this example fell flat for me; the plot is unimaginative and borders on the absurd, and most of the characters remain one-dimensional.  Hannah describes crime fiction as formulaic and unoriginal; unfortunately, that describes this book for me.  

But as I said at the beginning, I'm in the minority.  The novel won the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of the year and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award.