Thirty Days of Darkness is a Nordic thriller with a twist.
Hannah is a low selling award winning literary fiction author. She looks down upon genre fiction like mysteries. She takes up a challenge by a well-known bestselling mystery author, Jorn, to write her own mystery novel in thirty days. She goes to the country to write it. Hannah decides to use a real local murder as inspiration. A teenager, Thor, is dead. He drowned either before or after his head is bashed in. The local police are ineffective, so Hannah investigates Thor’s death herself.
I wanted a few more literary fiction jokes. But overall, this meta (author writing her own memoir while also writing a mystery novel) plot works. Even though Hannah is almost unrelentingly annoying, you will still root for her to find Thor’s killer. 4 stars for Thirty Days of Darkness.
Thanks to Orenda Books and Edelweiss+ for a digital review copy of the book.