The Fire Pit

March 19, 2018
In Ould’s skillfully plotted third novel set on the Faroe Islands (after 2017’s The Killing Bay), a dying man’s apparent suicide leads to the discovery of a skeleton concealed in a crumbling stone wall. Det. Hjalti Hentze believes the remains are those of a missing Norwegian woman who was last seen in a commune occupying the site 40 years before. There may also be a connection to a 40-year-old case of abduction and rape. Meanwhile, Faroes-born Jan Reyna, who has recently quit his job as a detective inspector with the British police, is trying to learn more about the suicide of his mother 40 years earlier when he was a small child. The cases turn out to be entwined and somehow connected to the disbanded Vesborggård House clinic. Multiple overlapping stories and a plethora of names unfamiliar to English-speaking readers slow the first few chapters, but the action soon picks up, propelled in part by the cast of well-drawn characters. Readers will look forward to Ould’s next outing to the Faroes.