I would like to thank Netgalley and HQ for an advance copy of Where Ravens Roost, a debut novel set in Jämtland, central Sweden.

Inspector Kjeld Nygaard is suspended pending investigation into his last case when his estranged father phones him to tell him he saw a murder in his barn. Unsure what to make of it as his father has Alzheimer’s he decides to visit his father after a 12 year absence and perhaps investigate. His curiosity is aroused when he finds a tooth in the rookery housed in the barn.

I thoroughly enjoyed Where Ravens Roost which is a quietly compulsive tale of family secrets and Kjeld’s journey of discovery and self acceptance. It is told entirely from Kjeld’s point of view in the third person and this is an ideal format for the content. It allows the reader to identify with him and get immersed in the story, but reinforces his personality of holding people at arm’s length. It also gives the reader room to speculate as they know no more or less than he does. I did guess some elements of the plot but mostly was totally clueless.

It is difficult to believe that this is a first novel as it seems so polished. I was glued to the pages with the slow burn of the plot. The reveals seem to come in the right places, at the right time. The plot itself seems to fit the small town atmosphere, it’s not a big, splashy affair but more a series of poor judgements and self interest and there is a feeling of amateurishness about the characters’ actions, no planning, just reaction. Throughout it all Kjeld has to re-assess both his relationships with others and his attitude to life, because, at times, he’s not a very nice man, being reckless and self centred. 

Where Ravens Roost is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

4.5 stars
Detective Kjeld Nygaard is currently on suspension after an incident that is currently under investigation. So, he decides to make the long journey home. To his father, Stenar, and sister, Sara. A family he has been estranged from for a while. But one he needs to reconnect with after a rather worrying call with his father not so long since. He arrives and is not really welcomed by his sister as she really doesn't want him rattling the ship that is his father's health. But rattle he seems to have done as his father mentions a murder he witnessed in the barn where he keeps the ravens.
Meanwhile, in the same town, the main employer is the mining company MineCorp. Run by two brothers - one, Peter, currently on hiatus, the other, Roland, wanting to sell up and retire. But to do so, Roland needs to declare his brother dead. And just after he starts this process, Peter sends an email.
And then a body turns up in the barn... And Kjeld has to try and piece together the past to make sense of the present and try and help his father.
This is a cracking read. A great storyline played out by some well drawn characters that are easy to connect to. I especially found Stenar's journey with Alzheimer's to be very profound and moving and well portrayed. His lucid moments were so powerful in between his moments of fuzziness. Also I need to mention the ravens. They brought a whole other level of creepiness and evil to the proceedings.
And the story itself kept me on my toes throughout. With its twists and turns as Kjeld tries to get to the truth, as he peels back the layers, as he talks to more people, as he unearths shock after shock. Until finally it's all out in the open and the past becomes a whole other thing to a lot of people.
This is billed as a debut book and I can't see too much more about it or the author but I would suspect, and indeed hope, that this could be the start of a series featuring Kjeld and his partner Esme who joins him towards the end of this book. I'd definitely be up for reading the next one if that is the case.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

I really enjoyed this crime novel.  Set in the far north of Sweden, the extreme beauty but also bleakness is described so well you feel like you're there.  Nygaard is a very flawed character and I alternated between loving him and wanting to slap him, he's so wrapped up in himself.
I hope that this is the first in a series as I'd like to follow his story further.

Detective inspector Kjeld has been suspended  from his job due to a case he was working on. He gets a cryptic call from his father Stemar saying that he has witnessed a murder in his barn. Kjeld has not seen his father for years and is shocked when he drives down to stay with him, to find that his father has Alzheimer’s. 

When Kjeld finds a human tooth in his father’s barn he starts to think that there may be some truth,in what his father had seen and starts to investigate.

A great gripping debut set in a small town where there are secrets, family disputes and gossip galore!!

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy in exchange for a review.

Where Ravens Roost is the debut novel by Karin Nordin and despite it being Scandi Noir it was not a book I could get into.

It started very slowly and didn’t grab my attention at any time. 

Not for me

A promising first dive into the series. Following Detective Kjeld Nygaard who travels down to the Swedish mining town of Varsund when he receives a distressing call from his estranged father. This leads him to the discovery of a dead body in his fathers ravens rookery. But when he quickly discovers his father has dementia and might have rung him in a more lucid movement, he finds he has a murder mystery on his hands to uncover. 

I found the ravens so creepy and chilling and loved the cold Swedish landscape. I also loved the grumpy non binary protagonist Kjeld and I am excited to carry on with the series when the next book is out.

Thanks to the author Karin Nordin,HQ stories and Netgalley for a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Kjeld Nygaard, a detective in Stockholm is on suspension.

 He is drawn back to the mining village where he grew up by a strange phone call from his estranged father who claims he has witnessed a murder in the family bar.

Upon his arrival, he finds his father suffering from Alzheimers and local opinion divided on what happened.

The secrets of this small town come bubbling to the surface, doe shis father know something or is it a product of his mind?

A stunning debut novel from Karin Nordin that keeps you on the edge of your seat

A truly bleak murder mystery in Scandi-noir fashion complete with brooding Detective currently on suspension from his last case which ended with the death of his friend. He returns to the far north of Sweden following a call from his father with whom he hasn't spoken for decades. An old murder, a very closed mining town, the 'Big Family' who own the mines, his father suffering from Alzheimers and a  sister who has the world on her shoulders. All this in early winter when daylight is a few grey hours. The feel of the small town - physically and the attitudes - is so true to life up there when you begin to imagine that the sun will never return despite the beauty of twilight on the snow and the trees. Bring in the father's pet ravens makes it even more spooky. Hope the author produces more. Thanks to NetGalley and HQ Digital for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

A new Scandinavian Noir series.

It has been a while since I read anything in this genre and I thought this one was very good, considering it is a debut. It has all the main ingredients of scandi noir, right down to the brooding, broken detective with a past. I look forward to reading on in the series.

Shelf hasn't spoken to his father for years but when he receives a garbled phone message about an attack in the barn where his father keeps his ravens, he decided to head home and try to make sense of what's going on. His father now has dementia, and there is no sign of  disturbance but things aren't quite right. Liked has to do some digging to find out what has happened and how it is connected to the mining company that borders his father's land.

*Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this in exchange for an honest opinion.*

This book is Scandi Noir at it's finest. Brilliantly written story that keeps the reader gripped and absorbed from start to finish

This was a typical Scandi murder mystery with a cold landscape, flawed characters and deep resentment. The only criticism I would make is regarding the landscape descriptions.. We could easily feel the remoteness and extreme cold  at Kjelds fathers house and hear the ravens eerily cawing in the barn.  But whenever he left the property to go into town I would have loved some more atmospheric descriptions so we could feel what he felt and see in our minds the surrounding landscape even more. Will Dean and Ragnar Jonasson are masters of this so I am often looking for something comparable in a Scandi novel. Having said that Karin has written a brilliant debut novel and  I will be looking for more of hers in the future.

4+

Detective Inspector Kjeld Nygaard is currently suspended from his job in Gothenburg because of an incident surrounding his last case. He receives a cryptic, garbled and puzzling message from his father Stenar about a murder in his barn. Stenar is suffering from Alzheimer’s, so is this a delusion of this wicked disease?  Kjeld takes the long drive to north of Sweden to his father’s isolated property to try to find out what is going on. The largely forested and remote area has only one major employer in Normalm Industries which is involved in mining and currently trying to merge with MineCorp. The company is being temporarily run by Roland Lindquist in the absence of his brother Peter. The unfolding story links the two things together in surprising ways. 

First of all, this is a really good debut novel. It’s very well written, the storyline is gripping and engaging and draws you in right from the intriguing start. The plot is excellent, there are plenty of surprising twists and some I did guess but these do not impair enjoyment. The pace is good, there’s a bit of a dip in the middle but it soon accelerates again. The two apparently disparate  story threads are linked together extremely well and the truth emerges organically. The north Swedish landscape, the isolation, the long cold, dark winters add a great deal to the eerie atmosphere and the densely encroaching forest adds claustrophobia. The ravens that Stenar keeps in his barn are a fantastic and quite unique addition to the storyline and they strike a creepy, tingles up the spine note as they seem so menacing and are ever present. I really like Kjeld as a character and his partner Esme is also good and I really hope these two will feature again in future novels. The portrayal of Stenar’s Alzheimer’s is sensitively done and you clearly sense Kjeld’s sister Sara’s feelings of being trapped and exhausted by it. The tension and emotions, especially resentment,  between the three of them is well conveyed. There’s a lot of back history in this area with bad blood and button pushing between characters which is intriguing. The puzzle deepens as Kjeld finds things that he can’t makes sense of but seems to be rooted in the past. As the truth emerges Kjeld learns a lot about himself and his family. 

Overall. I really enjoyed this novel and I look forward to reading more by Karin Nordin, she has a really promising future as a writer.

With thanks to NetGalley and HQ:HQ Digital for the arc for an honest review.

A soufflé has few ingredients and when executed properly is a joy to behold. Karin Nordin's novel Where Ravens Roost is very similar. Not a plethora of characters or locations but a gripping and page turning thriller nonetheless. Certainly the ravens gave a brooding sense of malevolence and they surely left their mark on Kjeld. Kjeld's father Stenar was the enigma in the story because of his changeable memory due to Alzheimers. This was portrayed with a high degree of accuracy and certainly made the novel more intriguing. It was a racing certainty that when a body was discovered it was Stenar who had put it there but was he the murderer? I think the relationship Stenar had with his son made me question whether he was his biological father from quite early on, plus there were some serious pointers along the way. Like every novel these days, the sexuality box ticking audit passed muster, notwithstanding that, I thought it an excellent read and worthy of a five star review.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and author for this ARC.  

I have read a few crime books set in Scandinavian countries and enjoyed them and thought the premise of this book looked interesting and my kind of read.   So I began this book without any expectations.   I really enjoyed this book, I thought it was very well written and it engaged me from start to finish.    I was hooked from the first chapter and loved the authors writing style.  I could picture the scenes in the woods, cabin and barn with the ravens in my mind.    I couldn't help but like the believable, flawed lead character who had a good back history.    This was a great, atmospheric read with a good plot that kept me on the edge of my seat.    I guessed one of the reveals towards the end but not the other(s).   I believe this is the author’s debut novel and for me she has really hit the mark with this book.   

4 stars ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Where Ravens Roost is Karin Nordin's debut novel and what a debut it is! All the best elements of the Scandi noir genre are included but it remains fresh and interesting, with plot twists that keep you reading.
The story centres around Kjeld Nygaard, a troubled police detective who has escaped his home town of Varsund, a mining community in a remote part of western Sweden. Nygaard is based in Gothenburg but on receiving a call from his father stating that he has witnessed a murder in the barn, he is reluctantly compelled to return to Varsund.
A lack of evidence coupled with the father's Alzheimers, lead the local Varsund police to quickly dismiss these claims.
On discovering a human tooth in a raven's nest in the barn, Nygaard is convinced that there may be some truth in his father's story.
In my opinion, Nygaard is a detective who is ready to become a favourite of readers of this genre - troubled relationships, lack of self-care and a few secrets in his past!
We have a small rural community, a wild, chilling landscape and a barn full of menacing ravens. The scene is set for a dark and atmospheric read, which I became thoroughly engaged in.

An excellent scandi thriller.  Dark and moody, with all the elements that you would want of a book in this genre.  A real page turner.   Kept me engrossed from start to finish.   Loved it.

Detective Kjeld Nygaard gets a phone call from his Dad that makes him rush home despite them not speaking for years. Home is Varsund and his Dad keeps ravens in his barn. They have witnessed so much but cannot tell their tale about the body about to be found in the barn. 
A totally brilliant book with great characters who have complex lives and personalities. Whose body is it? How did he die? Who has decided to try and remove the body now? Will Kjeld find out the truth? Read and find out.

A well-written book with a good plot, and characters the reader cares about.  However, I found it a bit slow and over-heavy on detail.  A good book if you like Scandi Noir.

A bleak landscape to a murder mystery at the centre of an investigation by a discredited inspector of police inadvertently drawn into a cache of secrets and lies related to his family and childhood. A dysfunctional character that ricochets from what appears to the reader to be an inability to think clearly, act concisely and prevent himself from actions that put himself and others in difficult if not dangerous situations. Yet he is the chief protagonist and flawed hero desperately trying to unearth long hidden deeds and actions that not only resulted in a hidden body but caused long term trauma and fractured relationships for two families, one rich and wealth focused, the other poor and intent on protecting the environment.  Self awareness he is the link between past and present, intent on solving that which many wish to remain secret only highlights his inadequacies, lack of support and friendship and despair at further collapsing of family ties. A darkness envelops the land, a cold creeps into everything and everyone and yet slowly the mystery begins to unravel as our protagonist solves the whys and wherefores in his difficult and complicated life. A most satisfactory conclusion and interesting three dimensional characters. Many thanks to publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

I absolutely loved this book.  
I always wonder if a Scandinavian book that I am about to read will be a bit on the slow, pedantic side with lots of snowy descriptions and towns and streets that I cannot begin to try to pronounce, However, this storyline is excellent and the character descriptions and building make you want to read more.
I was never quite certain where the story would go but, for me, it just got better and better.