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An Arctic Thriller
by Olivier Truc
Book Reviewed by:Tomorrow, the sun will rise for the first time in 40 days. Thirty minutes of daylight will herald the end of the polar night. But in the last hours of darkness, a precious artifact is stolen . . .
Tomorrow, the sun will rise for the first time in 40 days. Thirty minutes of daylight will herald the end of the polar night in Kautokeino, a small village in northern Norway, home to the indigenous Sami people.
But in the last hours of darkness, a precious artifact is stolen: an ancient Sami drum. The most important piece in the museum's collection, it was due to go on tour with a UN exhibition in a few short weeks.
Hours later, a man is murdered. Mattis, one of the last Sami reindeer herders, is found dead in his gumpy.
Are the two crimes connected? In a town fraught with tension - between the indigenous Samis fighting to keep their culture alive, the ultra-Lutheran Scandinavian colonists concerned with propagating their own religion, and the greedy geologists eager to mine the region's ore deposits - it falls to two local police officers to solve the crimes. Klemet Nango, an experienced Sami officer, and Nina Nansen, his much younger partner from the south of Norway, must find the perpetrators before it's too late...
Prologue
1693, Central Lapland
Aslak stumbled, a sign of exhaustion. He never missed his footing otherwise. The old man kept a firm hold on the package he was carrying. He rolled forward, head over heels. A clump of heather broke the force of his fall. A lemming darted out. Aslak got to his feet. Glancing back, he estimated his advance on his pursuers. The baying was louder now. There was little time left. He continued his silent race. His deep-set eyes burned brightly. His gaunt features and jutting cheekbones gave him a mysterious, hieratic air. He ran on, sure-footed now, trusting to instinct, working his body hard. He smiled and quickened his breathing, feeling fleet and light, sharpeyed, infallible. He knew he would not fall now. Knew, too, that he would not survive this mild and gentle night. They had been tracking him for a long while. It had to end.
He took in every detail of his surroundings: the high plateau, the ancient commotion transfixed in the rocks, the sinuous ...
The breathtaking beauty of Sápmi, of the Arctic tundra, is the real scene-stealer. Almost every chapter begins by noting the date and the minutes of sunlight received. Tuesday, January 11, for example, receives 27 minutes of sunlight. There is cold and then there is Kautokeino cold. That the locals zip around on their snowmobiles and skis anyway, is a testament to our capacity to endure even the harshest conditions. The panoramic setting, the Northern Lights, the snow-draped landscape - together make for a heady mix which is alone worth the price of admission...continued
Full Review
(646 words)
(Reviewed by Poornima Apte).
Forty Days Without Shadow sheds light on the native Sami people of northern Norway, most of whom are Lutherans. The Sami also take part in shamanic rituals that emphasize strong connections between the natural and spiritual worlds, although Christianity has been slowly making inroads over the centuries forcing the practice of the native religion underground.
A central aspect of the Sami shamanic rituals is the usage of drums as a conduit to channel spirits. The Sami also used a drum to forecast weather and other natural events. In fact, Mattis Labba, the Sami who is killed in the story, has ancestors who were skilled in such practices. They channeled higher spirits through use of a drum, a skill Labba did not fully learn, even though ...
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