CULTURE CLUB
It’s 1935, and a thinly disguised Girton College is the setting for this instalment of the Blind Detective series. War veteran Frederick Rowlands and his wife Edith are visiting Cambridge for a May Week event at St Gertrude’s, a college that’s slightly out of central town, where newly welcomed female undergraduates battle suspicion and prejudice to study alongside their male counterparts. It emerges that several college dons have received poison pen letters, and in the first few days of the Rowlands’ stay, tragedy strikes. A brilliant young female PhD student is found dead – and it turns out Frederick was one of the last people to see her alive. Which means the couple’s stay in Cambridge might not be the relaxing break they’d hoped for. As the series’ title suggests, Frederick is sightless after being injured in the war, and Koning’s earlier books incorporate his attempts to re-enter life without vision. The author’s hero was inspired by her own grandfather, a soldier in World War I who was blinded at Passchendaele. Five books in, Rowlands’ other senses are significantly enhanced: he is able to recall voices in the same way a sighted person might recall faces, and Edith is well practised at describing locations for her husband. The effect of these descriptive passages is a dialled-up sense of place – detailing the sounds, textures and scents presented by locations is a clever way of embedding readers in the room where the action is happening. This is an engaging, immersive read that’s the ideal companion on a cosy winter evening, and will no doubt see you seeking out the other books in the series. BY CHRISTINA KONING MURDER IN CAMBRIDGE
NORDIC VISIONS: THE BEST OF NORDIC SPECULATIVE FICTION EDITED BY MARGRÉT HELGADÓTTIR
Many book lovers (myself included) like to switch to darker reads when the nights start to draw in. Closing the shutters and snuggling under a blanket with a gothic horror or gripping thriller is, in my opinion, the finest way to enjoy winter evenings. So, an anthology of speculative fiction – and Nordic speculative fiction at that – makes the perfect selection box to whet your appetite for the months ahead. For those not yet used to the delights of speculative fiction, this could be a life-changing experience. As the editor’s introductory essay says, this genre challenges you to “think outside the box, to step off the usual path… to create new possibilities in our minds.” This is a collection of the finest speculative writing from the Nordic countries, some of which make their debut in English, and contains dark dystopias, spine-tingling horrors and unsettling tales that would be ideally suited to hurriedly being whispered beside a fading campfire in the depths of a Nordic primaeval forest, where you’re not entirely sure who – or what – might be listening. From the off, this collection is absolutely terrifying (new-build owners in particular should beware the very first tale) and may make you hurl your copy across the room – it’s astonishing how creepy these writers can be in just a few short pages. One to be savoured over the darker months, and an ideal gift for a fellow reader who needs a little shaking up.
FJORD FOCUS This anthology contains 16 of the finest works of Scandinavian counterfactual writing
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK NOVEMBER 2023 27
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