Single, snobbish and alcoholic, Hannah Krause-Bendix writes novels which obtain only critical success and seduce only a handful of elitist readers. If it weren’t for subsidies from the Danish government and from Bastian, her publisher and faithful friend, she would have changed careers a long time ago. But lately, the inspiration is no longer there. “Correction: it’s not inspiration that he lacks. It does not lack substance. The problem is rather the processing of ideas; in literary form, of course. »
Forced by Bastian to participate in a signing session at the book fair, Hannah explodes when she discovers that Jørn Jensen, her sworn enemy and popular thriller author, is welcomed like a star by readers who have come to attend the interview he grants to a journalist who asks him simpering questions without originality. “Jørn’s books lack spirit. They are deprived of the ideas which make the nobility and the originality of the individual; they are reiterations of ideas reheated and reproduced mechanically, on the assembly line”, thinks of her young colleague, the forty-something novelist.
It doesn’t take much for Hannah to throw a book at his head – which Jørn skilfully dodges. A fierce verbal sparring ensued, at the end of which, to her great astonishment, Hannah announced this to the dumbfounded assembly: “In a month, I will have written a detective novel that will surpass everything you have published. Sensing the publicity stunt, Bastian sends his protege deep in Iceland, to Ella, an old friend who speaks neither Danish nor English, so that she can find a source of inspiration there.
This amusing premise concocted by Jenny Lund Madsen, a renowned Danish screenwriter who signs thirty days of darkness, his first novel, will give rise to a story as improbable as it is thrilling where irony, the picturesque and the tragic come together without harming each other. Barely arrived in this small village where everyone knows each other, the novelist learns that Thor, 18, Ella’s nephew, has been found dead. Suicide or murder? Devoid of tact and subtlety, Hannah will get it into her head to help Erik, the only policeman in the area. At his own risk… And to the delight of the reader!
While she delights in taking Hannah through increasingly perilous adventures, while dissecting the codes of the thriller and making fun of the clichés of bad TV series, Jenny Lund Madsen breathes real emotion into the family drama that is being played out. in parallel with the investigation and the literary challenge. In doing so, she creates characters that turn out to be endearing, impenetrable and terrifying by turns. Marrying the look of her detestable heroine, but how entertaining, she shows the winter landscapes sometimes in their magical light, sometimes in their hostile light. The same goes for the peaceful atmosphere, which will gradually become icy and then downright anxiety-provoking. The result is a singular black Nordic thriller with an exotic charm.