The sixth Tuva Moodyson thriller set in a remote Arctic town that is cut off from the orld every night. Will Dean is excellent at creating tension, from the creaking chair lift to the creepy hotel to the ominous Wolverines patrolling Ice Town. However the twist and reveal was unexpected and not in a good way - the killer comes completely out of left field with a bizarre motive. Not as good as the earlier Tuva novels unfortunately.

This book makes me excited for where the next will go, due to the breadcrumbs which have been laid out for us. It was interesting to see Tuva in a totally different (albeit just as eerie & cold) location this time around. I would have liked a bit more about the loss she experienced (the very very last page or two was.. kind of.. a bit jarring and out of left field?!) but maybe that will come in time.

I absolutely loved this new book featuring the brilliant Tulsa. I adore her bravery and vulnerabilities. She's such a fresh of breath air in a genre overran with moody male protagonists.

Such a gripping and tense read with a unique and atmospheric setting. Plenty of thrills and twists yet a narrative that was also emotional and heartbreaking.

I can't wait for the next instalment and to find out what happens to Tulsa.

Ice Town by Will Dean

I’m convinced that I’m fated to never meet Will Dean. Despite booking to meet him twice this year both COVID and MS relapses have had ridiculously accurate timing and I didn’t manage either event. It’s so frustrating because I really am such a Tuva fangirl. I really enjoyed this trip back into her world, even if at times it was tense, threatening and claustrophobic. Will’s intrepid reporter is enticed to a town further north than Gavrik because her instinct is telling her there’s a story. Dubbed ‘Ice Town’ it’s a minor ski resort with only one upscale and very empty hotel. Stuck in its mid-century heyday it is now losing out to the bigger resorts and the hotel must be on its knees. Tuva can only access the town via a tunnel through a mountain. Traffic queues at the tunnel mouth as drivers are alternately let through. It then closes at night leaving residents cut off from the outside world. Tuva has been drawn by a missing person’s report, a teenager called Peter has disappeared. Nothing unusual in that, but Peter is deaf and Tuva is imagining how isolated he must feel. She worries that his hearing aid batteries have run out of battery life. She imagines him stuck somewhere in the dark, in freezing temperatures and not even able to hear the search teams shouting his name. Tuva packs up her Hilux and heads north hoping to find out more about Peter and maybe help the search. She’s heading for the only B & B in town, but when she gets there it’s clear they should have dropped the second B - something Tuva points out with her usual tact! It’s actuality two bedrooms in the back of the a sunbed shop with very thin walls, but Tuva does not need luxury and expenses are scrutinised carefully by her boss Lena. As she starts to acclimatise she starts to realise that, if possible, this is a quirkier town than Gavrik. She’s also without the long-standing relationship she usually has with the police. Can she find Peter without their help? Without her usual support system to call on, might she find herself in danger?

She rounds out that Peter lived with his grandmother and seems quite isolated in then community. Kids at school thought he was weird and girls mention that he made them uneasy, always staring at their mouths. Tuva is quick to point out that this isn’t sexual, he’s just trying to lip read. The church seems to be the gathering point for the community, with the Deacon organising the search parties. Instead of the police, once the tunnel is closed at night, the residents are protected by the Wolverines, a local biker gang. Tuva meets one of them at the only watering hole in town and finds out he’s actually a poet, an unexpected hobby for a huge mountain of a man dressed in leather. Tuva has managed to shack up next to the only other outside journalist, a girl called Astrid who has the other room beyond the sun beds. Tuva feels an urge to find Peter quickly and when a body is found near the tunnel she fears the worst. When news comes through that the body isn’t Peter, the search is based on two possibilities: either Peter and another resident have gone missing at around the same time and died from exposure, or Peter is in hiding, because he is the killer. This change from victim to possible perpetrator worries Tuva, she knows how disorientating it is to have no hearing out in the wilderness. She also worries that if the police do catch sight of him he won’t be able to hear their commands and they’ll shoot him. She asks the police chief to remind her officers that Peter can’t hear them.

It’s not long before Tuva is plunged into disorientating situations herself, in one scene when she’s staying at the resort hotel her isolated lobby falls into darkness and she can’t find the right bedroom door. For a moment she’s terrified and knocks a picture off the wall in her panic. It made me very jumpy because it seemed targeted because she’d been placed in such a remote part of the building. When waking up one night after a dream she feels around the bedside table and can’t find her hearing aids or her phone. As she feels her way around the unfamiliar room, I had the uncanny sense that she might be being watched. Anyone could be lurking in the dark. Who has moved her stuff and is someone in the dark watching her panic? That definitely had my heart racing. Then she finds them on the desk, remembering she’d had one too many at the pub and must have left them in the wrong place. Another scene that kept me glued to the book was when she took the ski lift down to the town and for some reason the power goes out. She hears what she thinks is a shot and the overhead light goes out. Now she’s just swinging silently in the dark and in the cold. She knows it doesn’t take long for frostbite to set in and she tries to protect her face. She is so vulnerable at this moment and I was scared for her. I felt like someone was playing with her, like a cat does with a mouse. I had to finish this scene before I could get up and do anything else.

Will writes the quirkiest characters and here there are a few. There’s Ingvar who comes across like a college professor and lives halfway down the slope with his dogs. Could he have tampered with the ski lift, after all he might seem respectable now but he has served a sentence for murder. The poet bouncer is another surprise, especially when Tuva unexpectedly wakes up in his house. There’s a pod-caster who is becoming quite well known, but his listeners don’t know that he keeps the slopes smooth by day and keeps large numbers rabbits in his basement for food. Once it becomes clear that they have a spree killer on their hands, the odds are a lot more serious. Could Tuva end up being a target due to her snooping around the town and asking too many questions? Maybe Peter’s position as an outsider has created resentment and a desire for revenge? For some reason Tuva doesn’t think he’s the killer, although he still hasn’t been found and bodies are starting to pile up. The claustrophobic feeling of the town isn’t helped when the killer’s methods become known. They disarm people with bear spray, several times more powerful than ordinary pepper spray which is banned in Sweden. Other items they use are military grade so could this be someone who served in the army? The victims are asphyxiated with a tourniquet used on the battle field that has a clever gadget attached. It can be turned to create the necessary pressure, even if you can only use one hand? It’s an unusual piece of kit and Tuva wonders whether the killer is a medic or has used one on the battlefield. Or is it the ability to adjust the pressure that’s key? To allow a few breaths then cut the victim off again, playing God.

I enjoyed the realisations Tuva has about her own life. She recognises that Lena and Tammy have kept her on track since her partner Noora died. To the extent of making sure she’s eating and getting some sleep. Despite losing her mum she certainly has some substitutes. I loved how Will lets thoughts of Noora just wander across her mind from time to time, sometimes happy memories and sometimes deeply sad ones. I’m glad that she gets to hear Nora’s heart beat from time to time. There is a strange coincidence that may have a huge impact on her personal life going forward. The tense few chapters that bring us to the finale are so confusing! My suspicion was running back and forth constantly and the clues come thick and fast here. I really didn’t know who to believe. We’re on tenterhooks and I remember thinking why does Tuva put herself and us through this? The ending coming in time for the Santa Lucia festival was beautifully done and those of us who’ve been reading since the beginning and love the weirder members of the Gavrik community will love a little cameo towards the end. When will someone pick this up for TV or a film series? It’s a fabulous franchise and it just gets stronger all the time.

I am a huge fan of Tuva Moodyson, and think this series gets better and better. This time, the location itself adds an extra layer of suspense and darkness in this story set in a town only accessible by a tunnel that shuts over night. Tuva’s own character grows with each telling.

Enjoyed it so much I've now downloaded the other books in the Tuva Moodyson series. Somehow this feisty deaf journalist has eluded me.
Dean is an expert in creating tension and atmosphere. The remote Swedish town where the only access, a tunnel, is closed at night is a perfect setting, as is the creepy hotel at the top of the valley with its defective and creaky chair lift.
It was difficult to spot the perpetrator among so many likely subjects.
I found some of the references to Tuva's past a bit confusing, having not read the other books, but it didn't spoil my enjoyment.

A great return for Tuva. Will Dean has created an engaging and captivating thriller with plenty of twists and turns. I read it over a few nights and I can honestly say I looked forward to getting back to it every night!

so happy to be back in tuvaland, favourite read of the year so far🎉 brilliant writing, unpredictable and engaging! will dean breathes life into every character he writes and i’ll be impatiently waiting for book 7😳 hands down my favourite series, i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again tuva moodyson deserves the world🥹😭

Immersive, Tense..
When journalist Tuva Moodyson receives a disturbing news alert, she knows that she needs to act immediately. She joins a search party for a missing teenager, knowing that she can help in a manner that, perhaps, no one else can. The situation is treacherous but it soon becomes clear that something more heinous is afoot. Atmospheric suspense, compelling and with a perfectly imagined backdrop, a propulsive plot populated with a credible cast and engaging narrative. Immersive and tense.

I have been waiting (not so) patiently for this book! Tuva is my absolute favourite character in any book or series ever! The second I was approved on Netgalley, I dropped the book I was reading and dove in.

It was like sitting down to coffee with an old friend. Ice Town is chilling in more ways than one. The town is even more isolated and cut off than Gavrik, and the weather is even more harsh. So, when a deaf teenager goes missing, Tuva rushes to help in the search.

It soon becomes clear that there is more to this story when a dead body turns up. Tuva and Astrid, a fellow journalist from another neighbouring town, both try and dig for the truth, the identity of the killer, and to find the missing teen.

The whole story is eerie as hell. This is made worse by the fact that Ice Town is only accessible by a tunnel that is closed each night. It's claustrophobic, tense, creepy, and absolutely captivating.

Tuva had me in floods of tears, both at the beginning and the end. Will Dean explored grief with such tenderness and sensitivity that I had to message him and thank him for that.

If you haven't read any of this series, why not??? Do it now. It's incredible!

My first Tuva thriller and I quite enjoyed it for the tense atmosphere (but nothing too creepy, thankfully) and the delicate way some themes were described. Such as people's weird fascination with true crime; the recent, horrific history of how Sami people were treated; the difficulties deaf people are dealing with; the perpetual distrust by women of men and how weary it can make one feel; how nature somehow is of less importance than what people want it to be (mines and ski resorts) – no matter its devastating consequences.

But of course, this being a whodunit, we're in it for the chase of the puzzle, finding clues to piece together some reasoning behind all this. And that is what I thought was a bit lacking... the last victim not being named, the (indeed, very unexpected) killer unveiling a plot that looked a bit thin to me.