I was really happy to be invited on this tour, and to chat about this new book. Thank you Ella! ‘I Will Miss You Tomorrow‘ is written by Heine Bakkeid and translated from the Norwegian by Anne Bruce.

Blurb

The first in a new Norwegian crime series featuring disgraced ex-Chief Inspector Thorkild Aske, a damaged man with a complicated past.

Fresh out of prison and a stint in a psychiatric hospital, disgraced ex-policeman Thorkild Aske only wants to lose himself in drugged dreams of his beloved Frei. Wild, unknowable Frei. The woman he loved. The woman he has lost forever.

Yet when Frei’s young cousin goes missing off the Norwegian coast and Thorkild is called in by the family to help find him, dead or alive, Thorkild cannot refuse. He owes them this.

Tormented by his past, Thorkild soon finds himself deep in treacherous waters. He’s lost his reputation – will he now lose his life?

My thoughts…

‘I Will Miss You Tomorrow‘ is a Norwegian crime thriller that is the first in a new mystery series named after the story’s lead, Thorkild Aske. Our protagonist is compelling, flawed, complex and troubled. The book is dark, full of apprehension, anxiety and despair. For me, it reads like both a psychological study and an action crime thriller, with a side order of the supernatural. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The setting is bleak; a frozen, unforgiving environment that cages and controls its inhabitants. The landscape is a fabulous character, and I loved the oppressive environment that added constant challenges and barriers. The author puts into this cold coastline an incredibly troubled man: Thorkild Aske, who is an ex-Chief Inspector, and he is currently ostracised, conflicted, addicted to his medication and living ‘like a spectre from the underworld’; he’s also a man being haunted. His immense battle for redemption was the main narrative hook for me.

Over the course of the novel, we find out more about Aske’s past and why he is in this position. The story soon reveals that he isn’t going to find peace anytime soon, as everything starts to spiral out of control for him after agreeing, albeit reluctantly, to help find a young man who has disappeared. The local police are dismissing the disappearance as a diving accident, but the young man’s desperate mother demands help, and the story begins in earnest. I’m not going to reveal any more plot, as I don’t want to spoil any of the author’s timely reveals… but expect a deviously constructed crime, betrayal, hatred, murder and corruption wrapped around a new exciting protagonist on a path of self-destruction but desperately crying out for atonement.

I certainly enjoyed this book, it’s dark and has many layers, moments of the supernatural, and a well plotted central crime. It’s dramatic, pushes the boundaries of the genre for drama’s sake and succeeds. It’s intense, creepy and full of atmospheric descriptions of a bleak, brutal and remote coastline that becomes a threatening character. There’s also the human story of a man pushed to extreme limits and his fight to find justice and battle his grief and personal despair. A fascinating layered new protagonist and I’d happily read the next book in this new exciting Nordic Noir.

Highly recommended. Bleak, dramatic and intense. Thorkild Aske and his troubled soul provide a brilliant new complex lead in a tightly plotted Nordic Noir read.

This book is translated from the Norwegian by Anne Bruce, the below author photograph is by Harriet M. Olsen.

Have a look at all the other bookish chat about ‘I Will Miss You Tomorrow’ on the below blog tour: