THE SILVER ROAD by Stina Jackson

From the title and the cover the reader immediately knows that the landscape is going to feature heavily in this novel in the Scandi-noir genre of story telling. Unlike most Scandi-noir novels, this is not narrated from the police point-of-view, but it has all the bleakness, greyness, long periods of low light with  murder, misogyny, violence and moral corruptness that we have come to associate with novels, films and TV series coming out of the countries of Scandinavia. The setting for this novel is Sweden, in a rural area north of Stockholm. Towns are few and far apart, forest is everywhere, houses/hamlets are scattered, often hidden down narrow windy roads, surrounded by trees, silence, and the long silver road cutting a windy, lonely and endless track through the landscape. There are many secrets, everyone seems to have a dark side to their nature.

Lelle is a father, for the past three years haunted by the sudden disappearance of his only child, 17 year old Lina who went missing at a bus stop. Full of self blame, he has spent these years driving up and down the roads of the area looking for his daughter. Unable to do much over the winter, he spends all summer, day and night, driving, searching, asking questions, stalking Lina's boyfriend of the time. Nothing. He is beyond caring about himself - his diet, his personal hygiene, his wife - he is a mess. The third anniversary of Lina's disappearance is looming, and he is almost at the end of of his tether.

Meanwhile there are two new arrivals in the area. 17 year old Meja and her mother Silje arrive from Stockholm to begin a new life with Torbjorn, a man Silje met on-line. Silje herself is a mess and has been for many years. There is no doubt she loves her daughter but she has very few parenting skills and is almost incapable of looking after herself. Meja's life has been one of upheaval; she is well used to her mother's wild fancies and destructive life style. But being stuck out in the middle of nowhere with her crazy mother and this strange man is almost a step too far for her. Left to her own devices much of the time, she soon gets to know a family in the area who take her in, and treat her as one of their own. Then another local teenage girl goes missing.

There is slow build up to the menace and the danger that the reader knows is going to happen at some stage. Some on-line reviews have not liked this lack of action for much of the book, but I loved it - the ominous dark and dangerous landscape, the numerous men including Lelle himself any of whom could be responsible for these disappearing girls. Meja's curiosity and need for normalcy as well as friends in her life, the compassion of the local detective, the menacing presence of Lina's ex boyfriend. And always that sinister setting - very unsettling and ominous. I loved it.