Wolf Winter

This was Cecilia Ekbäck's debut novel which I was keen to read after having read her The Historians.  This book is set in Lappland--the northern part of the Scandinavian countries--in the early 1700's. A small family, parents Paavo and Maija, and two daughters, Frederika and Dorotea, aged 14 and 6, respectively. They have apparently traded their fishing boat in a coastal Finland village for an uncle's homestead in Sweden. Paavo, once a successful fisherman, has developed a morbid fear of the water. The rundown homestead is near Blackåsen mountain, which locals consider to be a place infused with evil; supposedly the devil got trapped in a mountain crevice and hasn't been able to get back home to hell. 

One day, while daughters Frederika and Dorotea are herding the goats in a mountain meadow, they come across the mutilated body of a neighboring man. The few settlers who live in the area quickly explain the death away as a wolf attack. But Maija, who has some training in the healing arts, recognizes the clean slash from belly to chin as what it is--murder by a human, probably one of their neighbors. Maija's determination to get to the truth of the matter is energized when the dead man's widow kills herself and her four children. Everyone Maija tries to talk to seems to be hiding something and respond with reticence or outright anger at Maija for her persistence. If something is amiss, the settlers want to blame the nomadic Lapp herders who come down to the valley every winter. But the Lapps have been the victims of loss, too, and Maija is adamant that she will not let fear, rumors, and prejudice ruin their lives again. There are hints of a backstory in their former home and Maija's grandmother's ghost is a constant mental companion to her. However, when Frederika seeks help from her mother because the dead man's spirit has become a constant and threatening presence, Maija sternly warns Frederika to stay away from such indulgent and dangerous fantasies. There is a significant element of the supernatural--"a dose of…Scandinavian magical realism" (Historial Novels Society)--woven throughout this absorbing entry into the Scandinavian noir genre of thrillers. And Ekbäck's evocation of the beautiful but often unforgiving landscape and life-threatening weather are absolutely compelling. 

The Guardian offers a more detailed plot summary, and, in spite of some reservations about the book, concludes with effusive praise "for the beauty of its prose, its strange, compelling atmosphere and its tremendous evocation of the stark, dangerous, threatening place, which exits in the far north and in the hearts of all of us." Kirkus calls the tale "irresistible."