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An English bloke born in the East Midlands writes a novel about an investigative crime solving journalist working for a small newspaper in a rural Swedish backwater who happens to be a profoundly deaf, beautiful blonde lesbian. It's just got to be exploitative rubbish, right? Well, actually, no.

In fact, Dark Pines was shortlisted for The Guardian's Not the Booker prize and was a Zoe Ball book club choice. I would usually think the latter award to be the kiss of death but, in this case, Zoe has picked a a winner.

Tuva Moodyson is a reporter at the Gavrik Posten and her work colleague tells her that a body has been found in the woods and the nearest village has been sealed off with hunters and dog walkers told to stay away. The corpse has been found in area notorious for a series of killings twenty years previously known as the Medusa Murders. No one was ever caught and the killings just stopped, but there is speculation that they could be starting again rather than it being a simple hunting accident.

The road through the forest is a narrow, muddy track allowing just one car to drive through with only one or two passing places. Dotted here and there are a handful of houses. These are owned by David Holmqvist, a ghost-writing novelist, two elderly sisters, Cornelia and Alice Sørlie, who carve bespoke trolls that include animal parts.

Then there is Bengt Gustavsson, retired, a man with ears as big as pork chops and a compulsive hoarder who is forced to live in a caravan as his house is full. Further down lives Viggo Svensson, the local taxi driver who knows everyone, and his young son Mikey. A handsome middle-aged couple, Frida Carlsson and her husband Hannes, own the most beautiful house of all at the end of the lane.

Life in the small grimy town where Tuva lives is dominated by a huge liquorice factory where many of the locals work. The main street, Storgatan, has a McDonald's, an ICA Maxi Supermarket, a few seedy bars and a lot of snow slush. The townsfolk are a rather surly bunch, who drink huge amounts during the winter, and are suspicious of any outsider. This sets the scene for Tuva's investigation, aided and sometimes hindered by the local police who tend to dismiss all her theories and evidence she uncovers.

Dark Pines is a thrilling, well-plotted story, and very well told. The tension is only increased by Tuva's deafness, and her constant struggle with her rechargeable hearing aids.

The Scandi noir novel probably needed a foreigner like Will Dean to cast a fresh eye over the genre and he does so with a good deal of panache. And, in case you were wondering, Will Dean lives in rural Sweden with his wife and family and is obviously a keen observer of native Swedes.

Amazon has the paperback for £6.47 and the Kindle download for £3.99

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