Bad Apples by Will Dean If you thought Gavrik, Utgard Forest, Mossen and Snake River were creepy enough locations - then welcome to Visberg! Tuva Moodyson, deaf newspaper journalist, forest-hating, wine-gum loving, Hillux-driving, dead body discoverer is back! The Gavrik Posten has bought out a local paper and Tuva has been assigned to cover the most twisted village in Sweden - Visberg, known as Hill town. Decapitated heads, post mortem dentistry, a Bacchanalian pre-Halloween, ‘Wicker Man’ style tradition known as ‘Pan Night’. Seriously, this stuff is macabre, dark and completely bonkers. This series keeps on getting better (and weirder) and I CANNOT be without Tuva for too long - so please, let there be another very, very soon!

Oh my! What an amazing, fabulous, spooky, thrilling, scary ride. Loved every page! I'll start by saying that I'm a massive fan of this amazing author and have, to date, read all of his books. This is one in a series of Tuva Moodyson mysteries, but, it can easily be enjoyed as a stand alone and in my opinion is the best in the series. Although, if you haven't read the earlier books, please do as they set up this book brilliantly. Tuva is such an interestingly well written character and I've grown to love her. It's a book set in a remote Swedish town and it's so well written that you feel you know the area and the inhabitants, but, I'll definitely not be booking a visit anytime soon! It's got; murder, weirdness, fabulous characters, spooky tales and absolutely hooked me from the first page to the last. I'll miss the fabulous characters and I feel that I know that mountain drive, but, please read after you've seen your dentist! A fabulous full 5* for this cracker of a murder mystery and I cannot recommend highly enough. Congratulations to Will Dean. To anyone who loves a thrilling mystery; order now, you'll love it!

After reading and loving The Last Thing To Burn by Will Dean a few months ago, I was desperate to read another book by the author. So I delved right into Bad Apples, not realising that it is the fourth book in the series. But now I’m once again hooked on his stories, and I know that this is a series that I need to continue with. I absolutely love Dean’s striking writing with his unnerving descriptions and dark imagery, and this book really got me in the Halloween mood. It’s creepy, gloomy, gruesome and intriguing, and you can really get a sense of the Noir atmosphere with the dark and chilling weather, misty and eerie forests, and the tight but questionable small community. It really feels like you’ve been dropped into the story with the roads blocked to prevent you from leaving. Because not only is there a murder that needs solving, but the cultish locals all seem to be in on something, too. My only criticism is that I couldn’t picture Tuva Moodyson in my head, but that’s my own fault for skipping three books. I began thinking of her as a Swedish Vera, but soon realised that she must be a lot younger. I also couldn’t understand her job role as she seems to be the only one investigating this crime while the actual detectives take a backseat. I was also a little confused as to why people were answering her enquiries when they seemed fed up with the intrusion of the media, which she, in fact, is. However, these are things that I hope to get a better knowledge of when I read the first three books, which I am definitely going to do soon. And whatever the answers are, I already know that Tuva Moodyson is going to be a character that I love!

The latest addition to the Tuva Moodyson series was another thrilling adventure. The setting is so visceral and as the tension builds we really feel like we are following Tuva into the forests around Gavrick. It was truly an edge-of-the-seat experience. Let’s just say The Marathon Man has a lot to answer for! I can’t imagine how a reader wouldn’t get drawn into the world of Tuva, one of my favourite fictional characters. If you like creepy, dark, character-driven narratives this will be right up your street. Beautifully written.

TripFiction's Book of the Month, October 2021 Bad Apples is the fourth book in Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson crime thriller series set in fictional Gavrik in the actual Värmland area of central Sweden. It is every bit as good as – if not better than – the first three. [Read our reviews of Dark Pines, Red Snow, and Black River]. Tuva Moodyson, the feisty, deaf, bi-sexual reporter (now promoted to Deputy Editor of the local Gavrik paper) is again embroiled in a ritual killing. She is given the hill top town of Visberg – a few miles from Gavrik – as her patch. It is a very strange, but also pretty rich, place. The money comes from the Edlund family who owned the steel mill in this once thriving town. They now own an exclusive golf club (from which most of the townsfolk are indeed excluded). A middle aged resident of the town is found – by Tuva who heard a cry for help – shot and decapitated in the forest between Gavrik and Visberg. The lady who had discovered the body and made the cry for help then disappears. Tuva takes it upon herself to help the police in their investigation. Visberg is a sinister and mysterious place with many secrets. Pan Night – a kind of medieval orgy for the adult population – precedes Halloween for the young. Masks and disguises abound. In the middle of proceedings, the head of the decapitated man is placed in the town square. Someone is mocking the police… The book progresses to a very frightening and violent conclusion. Tuva is is great danger… What is brilliant about Will’s writing is how familiar we are with some of the characters – in addition to the police force in Gavrik and Tuva’s co-workers on the paper – we again encounter in Visberg the weird troll-making sisters from Dark Pines, who have a pop up shop ahead of Pan Night and Halloween. In parallel, there is a continuity in Tuva’s personal life. The Vietnamese owner of a mobile restaurant, Tammy, who is Tuva’s best friend and who was kidnapped in Black River, again features as does Noora – Tuva’s lover and an officer in the local police force. The whole book is familiar but different. Will also very cleverly expands the geography away from Gavrik itself. In Bad Apples we discover Visberg – in Black River we were introduced to Snake River, a strange encampment at the side of the forest. We are constantly given a bigger playground in which to interact with our favourite characters. Will’s Tuva Moodyson / Gavrik crime thriller series is a great addition to Nordic Noir. Will is up there with the best – all the more ‘surprising’ because he is a Brit (albeit one who now lives, with his family, in an isolated cabin in a Swedish forest). PS: Don’t turn off before you read the last two lines of the book – even i! you think the mystery is solved!