Adventures of a Kiwi crime writer at Dekkarit Festival 2017.

Varkaus is a picturesque little town roughly 300km north-east of where I live in Porvoo. It has a population of just over 20,000 people and has been built entirely around a huge and strangely beautiful paper mill of Gotham City type proportions. It is also the venue for Finland’s hippest up-and-coming crime fiction festival. It is a celebration of art, writing, true crime, music and all things mysterious. Dekkarit Festival, it has to be said, has been one of the most pleasant surprises of recent times for me.


I was invited to appear at this year’s event after one of my Finnish crime writing colleagues suggested me to the organisers. I accepted the invitation without hesitation and also without knowing too much about the festival. A little research into it led me to believe that it would be something of an interesting and varied event that would embrace many different aspects of the genre and that’s exactly what it was.


All too often crime writing festivals are nothing more than panel after panel of writers answering questions from a moderator and nothing else. While there is nothing wrong with listening to authors talk about their craft, after a while, it becomes a little dull. In my opinion anyway. I’ve always thought that mixing up the events at festivals such as these was the key to keeping them interesting. Sitting in a series of hotel meeting rooms for a couple of days leaves a little to be desired when it comes to delivering any sort of excitement factor. Dekkarit Festival certainly did not fall into that trap.


While the bulk of the action takes place at the Old Clubhouse there was certainly plenty happening elsewhere. Friday lunchtime we all packed into Teemu’s minivan and headed fifty kilometres into the countryside to Heinävesi to visit the swamp graves of Eine Nyyssönen and Riitta Pakkanen who were murdered at the Tulilahti campsite in 1959. The spot where their bodies were found is marked with two simple wooden crosses. As the years pass and the crosses are worn away by the elements they are replaced by a mysterious benefactor.


No one knows who the mystery guardian of the girls’ graves is but there is no shortage of mysteries when it comes to this case. The girls camped at the nearby and now defunct Tulilahti campsite but were buried some distance from the campsite in wet marshy ground. Easier to dig into perhaps. Next to where the makeshift graves were discovered lies the submerged remains of a small wooden boat. The boat was used by the killer (or killers) to row the girls’ bicycles out into the middle of the lake and dump them. When they were eventually found and pulled to the surface following several searches (the killer knew exactly where the deepest part of the lake was) it was discovered that the air had been let out of the bicycles’ tyres to help them sink.


 Although the person or persons responsible for the killings has never been found plenty of theories still exist as to his identity even after 58 years. Erik Runar Holmström was charged with the girls’ murders but protested his innocence all the way through his trial and even in the suicide note he left behind after hanging himself with a homemade noose while in custody. Many people doubted his guilt because of the distance the bodies would have had to have been moved from where they were killed at the campsite to where they were buried. Erik Runar Holmström was a short slightly built man and many thought him incapable of getting the bodies across the treacherous ground to their resting place. I’ve walked the distance involved and the killer was either a large well-built man or there were two of them. The distance is considerable and the terrain is uneven and tricky even when you’re not weighed down with a corpse.


Another suspect who was hardly talked about at the time was a German man by the name of Hans Assman. He was also implicated in the Lake Bodom murders a year later in 1960 as well as the Kyllikki Saari murder in 1953. There are similarities between the Heinävesi murders and the Kyllikki Saari murder in that both gravesites were marked by a sharpened branch being driven into the ground to mark the location of the secret graves.


Members of the search party in the Heinävesi murders were even told to look for such a branch. Assman was never formerly investigated for the Kyllikki Saari murder although it was thought at the time that he and his driver ran her over in their car before burying her body in a bog and dumping her bicycle in a nearby swamp. Assman was working for the KGB at the time and no one in the Finnish government had the stomach for upsetting their Soviet counterparts. Years later Assman hinted on his deathbed that he may have been involved.


"One thing however, I can tell you right away ... because it is the oldest one, and in a way it was an accident, that had to be covered up. Otherwise, our trip would have been revealed. Even though my friend was a good driver, the accident was unavoidable. I assume you know what I mean," he said.
Broken glass was found on the road near where she disappeared and a light-brown Opel similar to the one Assman owned was seen nearby by several witnesses. Assman’s wife reported that he came home with wet shoes and a sock missing and that several days later Assman and his driver left again. This time with a shovel.


No one has ever been convicted of the Heinävesi murders, nor the Kyllikki Saari murder nor the murders at Lake Bodom. In a land with 188,000 lakes it makes you wonder just how many bodies might still be out there. With that thought lodged firmly in our heads we headed back to the van. On the way back to Varkaus we stopped to climb an observation tower and take some photos of the wonderful scenery. We also took some time out to light a campfire and make coffee and cook sausages over the open flames. Chasing the ghosts of murdered girls had never been so much fun.
Back at the clubhouse there was a discussion panel on the Tulilahti murders and who might have committed them followed by a drive-in movie in the local car park.


At this point in time it can be confirmed that no arrests have been made in the Tulilahti inquiry and that the case remains open and unsolved despite the best efforts of everyone who joined us for sausages and coffee.


Saturday consisted of panel discussions in the clubhouse on such subjects as adapting crime fiction to the screen, historical crime novels and how crime books are born. I had a great conversation with the winner of the ‘Best Crime Book of the Year’ award Christian Rönnbacka about how he puts his books together. He comes up with a title first and then sends it to his graphic artist in Berlin who designs a cover for him that he feels will suit the title he has been given. When Christian receives the cover back he then sets about using that image to build the story in his head and works from there. Many writers, myself included I must confess, would look at that process and say that he is doing everything completely backwards. But as the saying goes there are many ways up the mountain and at the end of the day the only thing that really matters is that you get to the top.


At the dinner Christian was awarded his prize for ‘Best Crime Book of the Year’, a beautiful handmade drum from local artists Taikalaakso. This was not the only piece of art present at the festival. The walls of the clubhouse were lined with paintings by local artists all with some sort of dark or criminal leaning. I was interviewed in front of the assembled dinner guests about my journey from growing up in New Zealand to writing crime fiction in Finland via Australia, Northern Ireland and Iceland and my latest book ‘Out On The Ice’ then shortly after signing a few books I was interviewed again by Yle the national Finnish TV channel for a forthcoming culture show called ‘Egenland’. The rest of the night was spent wrestling booze out of a 19th century moonshine cellar and drinking with guests, locals and fellow writers at a local ‘speakeasy’. By the end of it all it was impossible not to have fallen in love with this arty, eccentric and adventurous festival.

A camping hut for the use of forest walkers in the Heinävesi area.

Discussion on the Tulilahti murders at the site of the swamp graves where the two girls were found.

And again talk turned to the possible suspects at the site of what was once the Tulilahti campsite.

Preparations for coffee and sausages after the perilous walk to the swamp graves.

Dekkarit Festival will be happening again on the last weekend of July in 2018 at the Old Clubhouse in Varkaus, Finland. The programme (in English) for this year's festival can be viewed here: http://brott.fi/program.html 

Read the first paragraphs of 'Out On The Ice' here.

The first paragraphs of 'Out On The Ice' are here to celebrate one week until it's release.

The book can be pre-ordered now: http://myBook.to/OutOnTheIce and will sent to you next Friday.

Get a taste of the story of Sóley and her troubled life now.

“Don’t go out on the ice,” was the first thing Gísli said to me when he saw little Jakob out on that frozen lake. That was twenty years ago now. It was the first thing he’d said to me all day I actually listened to and it is the last thing I remember him ever saying to me. I know there were other words spoken or screamed across the ice as I tried to get the two of them to come back to me. Back where they belonged, safe and sound in my arms. But it is that particular line that has stuck in my head over the passage of the years and I hear it again every time I look at my beautiful boy who has now become a man. And wonder what might have been.

Tears don’t spill from my eyes any more. They lie in wait to ambush me when they know I no longer have the strength to fight back. When I’m looking for something I should be able to say but can’t. When the words choke in my throat when they no longer have anywhere else left to go. When I remember something I once heard him say or thought he might have whispered to me on a cold night long ago. When I think of something I wanted or needed him to say, and still need now. More than ever. Then they come. And like the last thing you have left to hold onto, you let them come. Because it’s that or it’s nothing. And that makes me want him even more. More than I ever thought possible. More than I ever cared to admit.

My review of 'Since We Fell' by Dennis Lehane.

It’s been some time since I’ve reviewed a book. Well over a year in fact but I felt that it was time to pay tribute to one of my favourite authors to celebrate the release of his latest book. Well overdue in fact. The author in question is Dennis Lehane and the book in question is ‘Since We Fell’.

‘Since We Fell’ tells the story of Rachel who starts off my shooting her husband on his boat and watching him fall into Boston harbour. At this point we know very little about Rachel we don’t in fact even know who the husband she has just shot is. As it turns out she gets married twice. We then jump back in time to Rachel’s childhood where the tale of her search for her father begins. He disappeared when she was only three years old and her recollections of him are limited to his hair, his smile and the fact that he smelled of coffee and corduroy. Receiving no help whatsoever from her mother, quite the opposite in fact, she struggles to find him. She can’t even get his name out of her so when Mom is killed in a traffic accident with a fuel truck she is stuck in a form of emotional limbo. She has no way to track her father down and yet must find him in order to find any sort of peace in her life. Her odd and manipulative mother Elizabeth kept his name and whereabouts from her despite her pleading with her to tell her who he was and how she could get hold of him. As it turns out Elizabeth’s motives for keeping her daughter in the dark are as messed up and self-centred as you’re ever likely to find. It would seem that Mom, who was the author of best-selling series of books on marriage, had more than just a few bats loose in the attic.

Rachel plods on with her life as best she can but the identity of her father continues to haunt her every move. She even enlists the services of a private investigator to track him down but the plot only thickens with each stone that she turns over. Needless to say she is unable to let go of her search and it dominates and complicates every facet of the rest of her life.

The men in her life, besides her long lost father, are a strange bunch to say the least. There is the guy she tracks down thinking and hoping that he was her father but isn’t. The guy who reminds her of her mother who she marries who turns out to be just like her mother only worse. The guy who probably was her father but she could never be sure because died before she could meet him and the guy who reminded her of how she imagined her father to be so she marries him and who then turns out to be someone completely different but by then it’s too late. It’s a complicated life full of emptiness, endless searches, on-air breakdowns and therapy sessions.

“I hate you. I love you. I’ll miss you for the rest of my fucking life,” she says at one point.

‘Since We Fell’ is a change of pace again from Lehane who started off with a private investigator team series and then moved on to a couple of standalone books and then another series set in the 20s. Some of the dialogue in the book sizzles. My favourite conversation being between Rachel and Detective Kessler who is trying to put her and her husband in jail which as it turns out is probably as good a place as any for them to be. For their sakes as well as our own.

“I’ve been on some fucked-up cases, if you’ll excuse my language, but this is one of the more fucked-up ones I been on of late. I got a dead blonde in Rhody, a missing guy leading a double life, his lying wife –”

“I’m not lying.”

“Oh ho!” He wagged a finger at her. “Yes yes yes you are, Mrs Delacroix. You’re telling me so many lies I can’t even count them. And your neighbour there, the married guy in the Members Only jacket and the JCPenny slacks without the wedding ring? Guys like him don’t live in buildings like yours. He didn’t even know where the fucking garage was, and the doorman had clearly never seen him before.”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Lucky I’m a cop. They fucking pay us to notice shit like that.”

Tarantino would have been proud of that effort.

Over the last twenty-three years Lehane has amassed an impressive back catalogue with thirteen novels and a collection of short stories. Six of his books make up the ‘Kenzie – Gennaro’ series that he started off with and then there’s three books from the ‘Coughlin’ series as well as a collection of short stories and four standalone books of which ‘Since We Fell’ is the fourth.

The ‘Kenzie – Gennaro’ books are the ones that put Lehane on the map and run from his impressive debut ‘A Drink Before The War’ in 1994 through to ‘Prayers For Rain’ in 1999. Eleven years later he revisited the duo of private investigators in ‘Moonlight Mile’ after writing a couple of blockbusting standalones (‘Mystic River’ and ‘Shutter Island’ – both of which were turned into outstanding movies my Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese respectively).

It was the fourth book in the ‘Kenzie – Gennaro’ series that caught my eye, literally. As so often happens with me I discovered this author through a film adaptation of one of his books. This is how I’ve made some of my most endearing discoveries in literature over the years. Other authors I’ve found this way include Jim Thompson and Henning Mankell. ‘Gone, Baby Gone’ was made into a film in 2007 by Ben Affleck and made such an impression that I was forced to search out the author of such a great story and start reading his books.

For me though it is his two standalone novels ‘Mystic River’ and ‘Shutter Island’ that really stole the show though. ‘Mystic River’ in particular is one of the great American crime novels and is as good a place as any to start discovering the magic of Dennis Lehane and discover it you should. He has developed into an author who can now be mentioned in the same breath as Ellroy and that ladies and gentlemen is no mean feat whatsoever.

“We are not special. We are lit from within by a single candle flame, and when that flame is blown out and all light leaves our eyes, it is the same as if we never existed at all. We don’t own our life, we rent it.”

Indeed…

Chris Cornell July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017

In January 1994 I was living in Sydney, Australia working for local indie band ‘The Clouds’. We had a one-off appearance on that year’s Big Day Out tour playing the Gold Coast show only and not the rest of the tour which included Auckland, New Zealand as well as Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. On that year’s bill was Björk, Smashing Pumpkins and the Ramones. Not a bad line up by anyone’s standards but when you throw Soundgarden into the mix it was pretty special.
Soundgarden were only two months away from releasing Superunknown which would launch them from the realm of cult indie band into the big bright lights of mainstream success. It debuted at #1 in the US and went on to sell 10 million records worldwide. The sort of success unheard of since the days of Nirvana’s Nevermind.

Soundgarden had formed ten years earlier in 1984 and by 1989 had released two albums putting them years ahead of the rest of the Seattle pack. By the time Nirvana blew the lid off the thing Soundgarden were just about to release album #3. They were the unheralded trailblazers of the ‘Seattle Scene’.

While touring in support of Louder Than Love in March of 1990 Chris Cornell’s roommate Andy Wood of Mother Love Bone died of a heroin overdose. Upon returning to Seattle Cornell along with Andy’s former bandmates Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament joined forces with Soundgarden’s drummer Matt Cameron and guitarist Mike McCready to record Temple Of The Dog as a tribute to Woods’ life. Doing guest vocals on the album was unknown singer Eddie Vedder. The Temple Of The Dog album was released in April of 1991 and by August Stone Gossard, Matt Cameron, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready and Eddie Vedder had recorded and released Ten Pearl Jam’s debut album. Soundgarden replaced Matt Cameron on drums and continued on their own path while Pearl Jam would go on to dominate world charts for years to come.

Andy Wood’s death had unwittingly created a monster along with the help of Cornell and Seattle bands were finally achieving the success that Woods’ had always dreamed of having himself. His untimely death would not be the last that Seattle would see though. Shortly after I saw Soundgarden in Australia Kurt Cobain would become the Pacific Northwest city’s highest profile causality yet. His suicide in April of 1994 would make headlines around the world like no other rock death in many, many years.

Eight years later Layne Staley of Alice in Chains would join Woods’ in heroin oblivion and now Chris Cornell has followed Cobain to the dark lonely place he went to all those years ago.
Cornell once said: “There’s something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it’s not something that you get over. I don’t believe there’s a healing process.”
Perhaps the death of Andy Woods never left him. Living with someone in those early formative years would have made them very close. The fact that Cornell went to such a great effort to organise, write and record the Temple Of The Dog album suggests that the two meant an awful lot to each other.
Chris’ death certainly flies in the face of something else the man once said: “I’ve had a long career and I want to continue to have a long career. The way to do that is not to go away.”
Not go away indeed. Something changed or something became too much to deal with. The fact that he was on anxiety medication at the time of his death would suggest that all was not well. Whatever the reason he left us for I will always remember standing in front of them in a sunny field just outside Surfer’s Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast in January 1994 just watching and knowing that I was getting to see a band on the brink of doing what they’d always dreamed of doing.

I am not your rolling wheels
I am a highway
I am not your carpet ride
I am the sky
From ‘I Am The Highway’ (Audioslave)

Chris Cornell July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017

What they're already saying about 'Out On The Ice' (out June 16th)

“A thrilling story of love and bad decisions. Really bad decisions.” - Lilja Sigurðardóttir


“A dark poem about humanity.” - Teemu Paananen


"Twenty-three years later a tragic, desperate moment out on the ice seems never to be forgotten and shapes the lives of all who witnessed it forever." - Ewa Sherman


"Nicol writes suspense like a wizard—'Out On The Ice' is another of his dazzling spells. Here, in this fourth Icelandic installment, Nicol completes his cold, clever circle of moody tales." - Matt Phillips



'Out On The Ice' (out June 8th through Fahrenheit Press -

One brief but tragic moment out on a frozen Reykjavík lake changes Sóley’s life forever. Now, looking back on the last twenty-three years of her life, she attempts to make sense of it all. The tears, the pain and the lives lost along the way.
No one ever told her bringing up a son all on her own would be easy but not in her wildest dreams did she imagine it might be so hard. Together Jakob and her have walked alone through the worst that Iceland could throw at them and now she’s here to tell you her tale.


Read Nordic Noir's full review of the upcoming book here:

https://nordicnoirblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/24/out-on-the-ice-by-grant-nicol/

Pre-order the book here: http://myBook.to/OutOnTheIce

Advance review of 'Out On The Ice', out soon from Fahrenheit Press

Grant Nicol is an author who follows the story. Wherever it takes him, and he won’t stop until the story is firmly expressed in words. To start with, after several trips to the land of ice and fire he settled in Reykjavík and produced three books: On A Small Island, The Mistake and A Place to Bury Strangers: gritty, hard-biting, violent, threatening and quite unforgettable. Then Nicol moved to a different territory.  He is now working on a new series set in Finland and featuring a new character, a Finnish detective Markku Waris.  Judging by the way Nicol approaches the writing process and creating a tale, I expect a lot of powerful detail and nothing too gentle from him.

However, as a parting shot to Iceland and to the first series comes the latest novella Out On The Ice, soon to be sent to the wider world by the mavericks of the publishing industry Fahrenheit Press. Again, narration takes the author into the more lyrical and emotional zone. It is written from a female perspective.  Detective Grímur Karlsson, known from Nicol’s Icelandic trilogy, makes an appearance, and this time even he is a softer, more delicate character.

Sóley, a young single mother to a four-year-old Jakob, struggles with her own feelings and the practicalities of everyday life. She adores her happy trusting son. Yet life is tough as under the surface of normality she is well aware that the menacing past will sooner or later catch up with the present.  Despite this she plans to share her future with sensitive and decent Gísli, a struggling writer, who is completely in love with her. One day her ex-boyfriend Kaldi appears out of nowhere, or to be more precise, out of prison, after completing his sentence. Intimidation hangs in the air and things slowly start going wrong.

Kaldi, the father of Jakob, had promised he would never leave Sóley.  The sense of impending doom and emotional turmoil takes over from more rational thinking, as Sóley tries to keep her little family together but then the dependable Gísli disappears for several days to Denmark.  Kaldi is found dead. The Police get involved. Investigation, doubts,and fear follow and Gísli’s demeanour changes. He is impenetrable and out of control. Surrounded by a sea of unasked questions, reticent answers and strange moods, Sóley doesn’t know whom to believe or trust. Events turn more sinister, each decision appears to be wrong, and pure love exists no more. Twenty-three years later a tragic, desperate moment out on the ice seems never to be forgotten and shapes the lives of all who witnessed it forever.

My verdict? Well, I wouldn’t like to be one of the women in Grant Nicol’s books, but, hell, this wandering New-Zealander does capture the moods with such precision that it gets under your skin for a very long time.

- Ewa Sherman

Eurocrime's Review of 'A Place To Bury Strangers'.

Detective Grímur Karlsson’s life isn’t a barrel of laughs. Ageing, depressed, dissatisfied with his professional life, he has become known for not solving crimes, and failing to secure arrests and convictions in his two last major cases. His world-weary cynicism has contributed to people losing lives. Occasionally he still fights his own unwillingness and loneliness to concentrate on the job. When he reluctantly starts to investigate the disappearance of Svandis, a run-away girl from a ‘good home’ and a seriously desperate heroin addict, it’s obvious that nobody believes in his abilities, including her family and her hapless boyfriend. Very soon the National Commissioner gets involved and orders Grímur to be taken off the case, though Svandis and her habit funded by prostitution don’t seem to warrant such a strong opposition from the establishment, as she is just one of many ‘sex workers’ who will agree to do anything to survive. Until of course some insignificant clues begin to appear to be pointing in the direction of certain powerful men. Yet it will be a while before the depressed policeman realises what is really going on: shortly after his superiors’ decision he became a target of a violent shooting when following another young woman who had seemed to be in danger.

As he lies in an induced coma in a hospital his boss Ævar and a colleague Eygló are called to a gruesome crime scene at a deserted building site. A charred body is found in a barrel; behind it on a wall an enigmatic message in Norwegian written in a black paint. The police establish that the corpse was of a drug dealer, low in the pecking order, and want to resolve the matter quickly, especially as there might be a perfect villain on the loose, searching for an ex-girlfriend in dodgy clubs in Reykjavik: the notorious Knut Vigeland. The Norwegian despises Iceland yet makes frequent business trips to the country: and so far his activities under the official radar had only damaged the local drug barons. Ævar is determined to tie him to both crimes.

A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS is New Zealander Grant Nicol’s third book set in Iceland. The author’s passion for the country doesn’t mean that the story revolves around picturesque landscapes and tourist attractions. Although some well-known landmarks are mentioned, for example the famous Perlan building, they become points of focus for the plot which mostly moves between the police station, various unsavoury places in the capital, and then further away in the suburbs where nothing good ever happens to the main characters. The use of the Icelandic setting helps to shed light on some perilous issues and deeply unhappy types, as the central drug problem is closely linked to the abuse of women. The narration jumps time-wise and adds to the clever confusion which keeps it interesting. This piece of writing isn’t for those who want things cosy and pretty. But if you are not afraid of getting to know the brutal underbelly of this island, then read about a gritty and violent place to (apparently) bury strangers.

Ewa Sherman, March 2017

'A Place To Bury Strangers' is out now through Fahrenheit Press: http://www.fahrenheit-press.com/books_BuryStrangers.html

My Fourth Book 'Out On The Ice' To Be Released This Spring...!

                                'OUT ON THE ICE'... coming soon!

I have just this week signed a contract with publishing punk rockers Fahrenheit Press to publish my fourth book this spring. The novella will be entitled ‘Out On The Ice’ and will mark the end of my Icelandic Noir series set in Reykjavík, for the time being anyway. Having recently moved to Finland I am now working on a series set here featuring my new detective Markku Waris designed to make your hair stand on end and give you endless sleepless nights.

‘Out On The Ice’ is a novella of similar length to my book ‘The Mistake’. It is written from a female protagonist’s point of view much as my first book ‘On A Small Island’ was. It has a softer approach to the crime genre than my other books and revolves around a narrative of how love can go so terribly wrong. The story is told from Sóley’s perspective as she relives the last twenty-three years of her life and her struggles with her son Jakob, her boyfriend Gísli and the father of her child Kaldi. While Sóley tries so very hard to hold her little family together the men in her life strive only to wind up in trouble which they invariably do.

This book will allow the sun to set on Detective Grímur Karlsson’s career and my stories from Iceland before I launch my new Finnish series later in the year. ‘On A Small Island’ and ‘A Place To Bury Strangers’ are available now through Fahrenheit Press while ‘The Mistake’ is out through Number Thirteen Press.

‘On A Small Island: http://myBook.to/SmallIsland

‘The Mistake’: http://myBook.to/TheMistake

‘A Place To Bury Strangers’: http://myBook.to/BuryStrangers 

‘Out On The Ice’ will be released just in time for my appearance at this year’s Dekkarit Festival in Varkaus, Finland. The Dekkarit Festival is a crime writing festival like no other and features a variety of multi-media events including a drive-in cinema. Anyone thinking of making a trip to glorious Finland at any point will do well to consider dropping in on Varkaus this July 28-30.

Festival website: http://brott.fi/index.html

My bit: http://brott.fi/grant-nicol.html

At the moment the website is only in Finland but an English version will be available soon. Summer in Finland is a treat not to be missed with the temperatures here reaching heights that the UK and other parts of Europe could only dream of. We all hope to see you there!

Here you can read the opening paragraph of 'Out On The Ice':

“Don’t go out on the ice,” was the first thing Gísli said to me when he saw little Jakob out on that frozen lake. That was twenty years ago now. It was the first thing he’d said to me all day I actually listened to and it is the last thing I remember him ever saying to me. I know there were other words spoken or screamed across the ice as I tried to get the two of them to come back to me. Back where they belonged, safe and sound in my arms. But it is that particular line that has stuck in my head over the passage of the years and I hear it again every time I look at my beautiful boy who has now become a man. And wonder what might have been.

Thoughtful review of 'The Mistake'

"The novella THE MISTAKE is short, sharp, packed with a punch crime fiction set in Iceland, written by ex-pat New Zealander Grant Nicol. Set in Reykjavik, there's a lot that's laid on the line, as you'd expect in something constrained by length. There's been a brutal murder and the clear suspect is on the scene. A troubled man, prone to blackouts, discovers a body in his own yard and it looks like it's done and dusted. Especially when the suspect, Gunnar Atli, has secrets to hide. On the other side of the equation is a cop who is determined to prove beyond reasonable doubt, and a father who seems equally determined to ensure justice is delivered for his daughter.

A simple premise on the face of it, but layered and complicated beautifully throughout, this is a story that keeps the reader constantly guessing. Not just about what really happened, but how the victim ended up as a victim, what is it that everybody is trying to hide, and obviously, did Atli actually kill this troubled young woman. Along the way there are plenty of things about all societies these days to consider - domestic violence, prostitution and the treatment of the mentally ill for starters.

Whilst character development does take a little bit of a back stall in THE MISTAKE, there's enough depth there to give you a feeling for these people, and what they think and feel. The plot has considerable focus, as the tussle between convenience and conclusion play out. What's particularly strong however, is atmosphere. There's something wonderfully dark and slightly creepy about this tale, bringing a different viewpoint to expectations of something that seems as overwhelmingly peaceful or at least considered as Icelandic society.

Given how short THE MISTAKE is you could be excused for feeling somewhat let down, as it feels like the sort of story that could have expanded, but fortunately Nicol has a first, full-length novel - ON A SMALL ISLAND - out if you're of a mind to keep going with this author's writing. It's a different set of characters, and a different scenario, but there's that same absorbing, all encompassing atmosphere.

Both of these outings are definitely well worth a look if you're a fan of the darker, less cut and dried, nuanced side of crime fiction."






'The Mistake' is out now through Number Thirteen Press -http://myBook.to/TheMistake 

Grant's other two books 'On A Small Island' http://myBook.to/SmallIsland

and 'A Place To Bury Strangers' http://myBook.to/BuryStrangers  

are out now through Fahrenheit Press. His fourth and final Icelandic Noir book 'Out On The Ice' will be published by Fahrenheit Press in June.

My first Finnish review of 'A Place To Bury Strangers'

Teemu Paananen of the Dekkarit Festival has just finished reading my new book 'A Place To Bury Strangers' and this is what he had to say about it.




"Yesterday I finished ‘A Place To Bury Strangers’ and I really, really liked it. I’m almost sad it ended. You have internalised Nordic Noir very well, much better than many Nordic writers. Maybe you have a Nordic heart in your chest. Thank you for the great experience." – Teemu Paananen (Organiser of Dekkarit Crime Festival in Varkaus, Finland)

I will be appearing at the Dekkarit Festival in Finland this July 28-30 in Varkaus, Finland

My new book is out now: 'A Place To Bury Strangers'

Henning Mankell - 'The Shadow Girls' and beyond.

Death is not what is frightening to me, not the fact that the light goes out, but this fact that we are going to be dead so very long.






It is almost exactly fifteen months ago that Henning Mankell passed away. The literary world is a lesser place for him not being here anymore. Every now and then I read one of his books to remind myself how good he was. My latest venture into Mankell territory was ‘The Shadow Girls’ which I have just finished. Given the plight of refugees all over Europe today and the ongoing conundrum of what to do about the issue it is amazing just how little has changed in the fifteen years since the book was published in English. Mankell’s ample insight into the problems of people smuggling for the sex trade and the thousands upon thousands who flee Africa every day makes me wonder why the only thing that has happened to the refugee crisis in Europe over the last decade and a half is that is a decade and a half older and a decade and a half worse. The problems with the way we attempt to deal with the crisis have not changed. I spent eight years working in a hostel that was used as emergency accommodation for asylum seekers arriving in the UK and the disillusionment at the realities of the ‘Promised Land’ and the abuse of the system that provides food and shelter to such people has reached breaking point. We are doing nothing more than creating a society of ‘non-persons’ as George Orwell once described them. An underground population of people who don’t technically exist in our country and can’t get back to their own.





“Whoever said something had to be written down on paper to be a story? The most important thing is that they are telling their stories at all.”

“You can be dead even though you’re alive and alive although you’re dead.”






‘The Shadow Girls’ is a beautifully written novel and a brilliant insight into the problems of our modern Europe. It is up to us however to fix the problems with more than tired and unfair legislation and insufficient funds. We deny people their asylum applications because we cannot afford them and in many cases we do not deport them for the same reason. The problem has become one of financial concerns and governments refuse to look at these people as people but instead look at them as one side of an already bursting public spending ledger. They simply become stuck at the point that they enter the system with no opportunity of breaking free. They simply swap one set of chains for another. If George Orwell only knew just how right he was.

Awesome new review of 'A Place To Bury Strangers'.

"Nicol's dark, time-shifting narrative is masterful and powerful. Subterranean and uncontrollable forces––greed, desire, loneliness, addiction––transport the characters who populate Reykjavik's back streets to often fatal moments of clarity––with Iceland's most dangerous and elemental geographic locations as backdrop--the massive and seething Gullfoss; the treacherous and icy silence of the forest; the tumult of the sea. Detective Grímur Karlsson, deadened by failure and by solitude, literally falls into the most important and dangerous case of his career, the vanishing of a prostitute into the night. But finding the missing girl reveals more than locating a body. Along the way Grímur discovers that he, too, is disposable, and that light comes from the most unlikely places."