Wolf Winter is Swedish-born, Canadian-based writer, Cecilia Ekbäck’s debut, and while the nature of first-time novels is often uneven there is plenty to commend in this one. Set in Swedish Lapland of the early 18th century the plot revolves around a community of settlers on Blackasen Mountain. Although King Charles XII is frequently referred to, almost no mention is made of the dynamic wars with which he was engaged — a brilliant military leader and tactician, he managed to subdue several of his antagonists, with the exception of Russia.

Rather, Ekbäck deliberately chooses to dwell on the relentless rigours of bucolic life in the cruelly challenging climate of Sweden in 1717; indeed the novel derives its name from this all-encompassing concern. ‘Wolf winter’ is a term used to describe an unusually harsh winter, even by grim, unremitting Lapland standards.

When the novel opens Maija, the main female protagonist, and her husband Paavo have recently settled on Blackasen Mountain. Their children discover a male corpse in the forest — its belly sliced open by a large, wicked looking cut. At first the community assumes that the dead man, Ericksson, had fallen foul of a wild bear or wolf, but Maija rightly asserts that the cut is too clean to have been the work of an animal.

A rudimentary murder investigation follows in which the priest of the town does his best to get to the heart of the crime. The book contains many intersecting mysteries, some more important than others, and virtually every major adult character has links to a dark past.

An ambitious writer, Ekbäck does not wish to write just about a crime, intriguing though it may be; instead she infuses elements of witchcraft and shamanism into her tale. It is a commonly known fact that the 18th century was notorious for the persecution of witchcraft.

Cecilia Ekbäck’s debut mystery novel is set in 1717 in Lapland, Sweden

Ekbäck pits the wisdom of Maija who regards herself as a successful ‘earth woman’ (with a superior knowledge of herbs and animal husbandry) against the superstition of a community that has rapidly turned towards Jesus in the hopes that Christianity will offer it some protection against the bitter environmental adversities which they have to combat every day. At one point a fateful journey in a blizzard inflicts frostbite on the toes of Maija’s younger daughter, Dorotea, and Ekbäck’s evident knowledge of the dangers of this condition rings true with ominous and admirable authenticity.

The author does a superb job of developing Maija’s character; the protagonist’s myriad moods and traits are faithfully delineated — they include, but are not limited to, anger, humour, intelligence, fear, common sense, vengeance and passion. Maija’s older daughter, Frederika comes across as an equally intriguing character. She discovers that, like some of the ferocious and hardened Lapps who live with the Blackasen community, she has the ability to see and communicate with the dead.

The reader gets rather excited when she begins to communicate with the ghost of Ericksson. Excitement gives way to a suspension of disbelief when one realises that, as far as Frederika is concerned, Ericksson though definitively dead, possesses a corporal presence! While this may seem bizarre in some other novels, Ekbäck manages to make this spiritual aspect of her story relatively plausible.

Perhaps she is aided in this by the isolated, eerie, partly surreal milieu of Blackasen itself. Ostensibly rural and unthreatening, it is in actuality a terrifying place where predatory animals brutally destroy livestock, depressed widows with no means of livelihood are found killed along with their small children, disturbing witch trials take place, women found guilty of promiscuity are publicly shamed, and abuse, insanity and paedophilia rear their ugly heads.

In some sociological ways the 18th century mirrored concerns of our own, especially insofar as psychologically horrific undercurrents within tightly-knit communities are concerned. While Ekbäck’s knowledge of Swedish history and climate is impressive, her plot and tone begin to falter as she grapples with the sinister concerns. One does not scoff at the relatively unsophisticated manner in which Maija and the priest investigate the murder, or even at Ericksson’s otherworldly association with Frederika. However, the introduction of homosexual abuse and paedophilia late in the novel simply emerge as distasteful at best, and a serious thematic nuisance for the book at worst.

Given her considerable talent for description and the creation of atmosphere, insofar as plot is concerned perhaps the writer can be excused for “falling the first time” as Neo/Keanu Reeves and others did in The Matrix. What bothered me more than the author’s somewhat wild-plot machinations was her occasional lack of accuracy, especially at important moments. For instance, the priest checks a Church register in order to ascertain the birth date of a girl who was sent away, shortly before the action of the novel commenced, for shaming the community by getting pregnant out of wedlock. One cannot help but raise an eyebrow at the fact that Ekbäck clearly notes that the girl was born in 1711, and that would have made her only six years old by 1717 (which is when the novel is set). This type of error turns suspense into farce faster than one can say ‘Scandinavia.’

Perhaps such slippage is partly due to poor editing but Ekbäck’s overly ambitious agenda may have also contributed to such flaws. That novelists working on their first book get carried away by their own passion and irritating errors comes as no surprise, but as Michelangelo once told an apprentice: “paying attention to trifles makes for perfection, and perfection is not a trifle”.

Barring an excessive reliance on sentence fragments and gerunds, Ekbäck’s prose is simple and fluid and her descriptions of slaughtered animals, wildlife, climate, and rural trials are undeniably engrossing.

The reviewer is assistant professor of social sciences and liberal arts at the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.

Wolf Winter
(NOVEL)
By Cecilia Ekbäck
Hodder and Stoughton, UK
ISBN 978-1444789515
432pp.