and then I nudge my ponytail and switch on my hearing aids but then we are confronted with a very different narrator. I really like this series, like the quirkiness of it and the tension which flows through every book. It is not a fast paced series, nor should it be as that would not fit the setting. It is atmospheric, the author using the landscape and, in this case, the seasons to full effect. The book is set towards the end of the really cold season, but there is still that sense of the darkness that envelops everything, setting a kind a of moody and eerie tone that when coupled with a community of people who can hunt and shoot with a stealth that cannot be matched, it really sets you on edge, not sure what to expect or when. There are certainly a lot of surprises in the book, as well as some elements which seem almost inevitable, and be prepared to be caught unaware when the truth of what happens is revealed as, in true Will Dean style, he takes us right to the edge with a high stakes, jeopardy laden ending that really gets the pulse pumping. If you're a regular bloke with a regular job, I get it. If you're a reporter, your phone, Ipad and camera are so crucial to doing your job that they should always be charging when not in use. In the small town where Tuva worked, the electronics weren't always in use. Red Planet Pictures has optioned the rights to Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson crime series and has brought Rose Ayling-Ellis on board to play the lead role. It's amazing to think that so many authors struggle to get published when this book is out there on shelves. I was going to just not write a review for this, because I know we're all just trying to get through life and I don't want to be mean to anyone just for the sake of it... But sometimes I think everyone is a bit too kind, because frankly this author would be better off doing something else with his life.

This is my first Tuva Moodyson (I hadn't realised it was a series) although I've read Will Dean's excellent work previously. I have to say it's not essential that you read the earlier ones but I always like to start at the beginning. I think in this case it might help.

Our main character is the only one causing any danger, by continually going into the forest herself (which is described tree by tree, every single time). She goes there about 12 times but every time she does, she freaks out and leaves again, normally without having discovered anything. Needless trips to the forest, needless description of everything, and an incessant use of the word "and" when a comma would do. I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd say the author was trying to meet a word count. Now he has set wolves on his readers. Wolves with evil eyes and the scent of blood in the air. The setting of this rural part of Sweden with the towns of Visberg and Gavrik (fictional) is just chillingly perfect. The forests have eyes, the river has snakes and there are sisters who make troll dolls. Tuva is a journalist which is always a nice change of pace in a crime novel, I like the uniqueness of having someone other than a police officer investigating a case. She was really intriguing, she’s deaf and not your typical lead, she’s not overly brave or tough, in fact she’s actually terrified of the woods and the combination of her fear and not being able to hear made for some great, eerie situations. She’s an outsider in her small town having only been living there for two years and the oddball group of locals don’t know what to make of her. These characters were really great, they were all SO weird and had so many off the wall quirks, you never knew quite what would happen with them next and it made it all the more difficult to figure out whodunnit. While I wasn't surprised when the killer was revealed, this 3-star read gets bumped up to 3.5 after the resolution and vindication. It was easy to read but I wasn't really engaged. This is sort of more of problem 6, but our character is dislikeable in still another way. She's a preacher. Apparently it's not nice to compliment a deaf person on their speaking skills. Even if it's meant to be a compliment, "it's just f***ing not" she says (actual quote) and shame on you, reader, for thinking anything else. You are the bad guy here. You because you're not deaf, you're not bisexual, your best friend isn't Thai, you're not half Sami and you may not be female.

Rose Ayling-Ellis said: “ I can’t wait to get started on Tuva! As soon as I read Charlotte’s scripts and then dived further into Will’s books, I just knew this was a role I wanted to play and a world I wanted to explore! It’s especially exciting for me to bring this to life alongside other deaf characters. This is a dream team to work with and I’ve no doubts this will be a story that everyone will enjoy!” Thank you to Netgalley and Oneworld Publication for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review. I liked this, how could you not like something so atmospheric and that takes you to the wilderness of Sweden forests? There are some genuinely gripping moments and the characters are wonderfully realised (loved the Troll-making ladies)! I also loved that the main character was deaf - nice to see, and added an interesting twist to many of the scenarios, where you'd traditionally rely on sound. And the environment - brilliantly depicted, I could really imagine it. Life goes on” as the saying goes, and it’s the same for Tuva. She soon stumbles upon a curious case. A 20-year-old woman, Elsa Nyberg, a resident of an elusive Rose Farm, goes missing.Then you have the quirky, odd and realistic characters that live in and around Gavrik – from the sisters (my favourites!) with their extremely strange creative profession and their lilting way of talking to Tuva herself, everyone you meet in Dark Pines will give you a different emotional response. The mystery element is so so SO well done, I don’t even want to say anything about it, you should just read it and live in it and wait for that downright eerie ending that is elegantly achieved. As I was reading I was trying to figure out whether the baby who survived the 1987’s shooting will come to light (it did – and I didn’t anticipate it!). Dark Pines by Will Dean is a pretty good thriller and whodunnit. You know one of those stories where you’re thinking about who the culprit is while you’re doing other things. The only other Will Dean book I’ve read is The Last Thing to Burn, which was good too – I gave that one 4 stars.

OMFG this is such an amaaaazing book, I am not sure my review will do it justice! But I will give it a go! Dean is not deaf himself, and doesn’t understand why Tuva, who has now appeared in three crime novels, with more to follow, came to him in that way. “I wish I understood these things better. Maybe it’s a subconscious thing, and I had gleaned that I hadn’t seen many deaf characters,” he says. He still researches extensively into life with hearing loss, and says he was “worried and concerned” about how deaf readers would receive Tuva. When a deaf reader tells him his writing feels authentic, it means everything to him. The Tuva Moodyson series remains one of my favourite crime series and one I can’t get enough of. I hope that we will see a lot more of Tuva in future.Having grown up in the East Midlands, Dean depicts the huge skies and endless flats of the region through the eyes of Thanh Dao, to whom it is a “flatland hell”. “I do love it. I find it quite eerie and bleak, but it is quite beautiful,” he says. “I like bad weather and bleak landscapes. Where I am in the forest, the sun won’t rise above the treetops for the next two or three months. My friends freak out, and think that sounds awful, but I quite like it.” I also enjoyed the eccentric but complex cast of characters that inhabit the handful of houses that make up Mossen village: an ex-army single father taxi driver, obsessed with mice and his haunted son; two sisters hand-carving Trolls augmented with animal and body parts; a ghost writer who refuses to fit in with local conventions and is still suspected by many locals of an earlier, unsolved set of related murders; an obsessive animal rights activist; and then the leader of the local hunting group, the most popular man in the town but with his own secrets. The reason that the farm has gained such a reputation if you like, is that it is run by 'Preppers' - survivalists - people who are readying themselves for a state of emergency, be it war, alien invasion or perhaps even the end of the world as we know it. Now the community at Rose Farm are not so far gone that they are expecting an alien invasion (at least I don't think they are), but they are a very self sufficient and closeted community who grown their own food, hunt and train to defend themselves against the outside world. Will Dean has done a brilliant job of drawing us into their world, making each of the characters we meet stand out, but not in a crazed, fanatic kind of way. In fact, with the exception of the reclusive Abraham who we never really meet, they are almost conspicuous by how normal they are - how down to earth, if a little insular. We get to see them as Tuva does, trying to understand their motivations for living as they do and what, if any, link this has to the missing woman> Dark Pines is more than just a crime thriller, it’s a story full of quirky characters with depth set in an atmospheric and creepy surrounding. As for characters…this book was RICH with some fantastic, well developed characters that had me curious throughout! I wanted to know EVERYTHING about them – and Will Dean did not disappoint. I will mention just a few though as I think this is the type of book where you have to EXPERIENCE everything and my own views may differ from others.

I just love that Will Dean can write a thriller, a PROPER whodunnit, a pacey & gory mystery...... that folds into its mix: pear flavoured wine gums, bouts of hayfever in MacDonalds, the rigmorale of changing out of layers of clothing & how a Hillux handles. Will Dean puts the REAL in surreal. The remote Swedish countryside in which this series is set is almost as major a character as Tuva herself. Filled with dark, menacing forests, it adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere Will Dean has created. And if you think that Rose Farm is a spot of brightness in the landscape, you might need to think again. It has a dark past, and is now a closed community, home to a half dozen survivalists.Tuva] is admirably resilient, full of warmth and humour… Her travails may well give sensitive readers nightmares, but that’s a small price to pay for spending time in her exhilarating company.’ I enjoyed the setting of small town Sweden and the procession of creepy eccentrics lined up as possible culprits. The atmosphere is dark and unsettling and the tension grows steadily with a good, solid ending.