Review: "Thirty Days of Darkness," Jenny Lund Madsen

(translated from the Danish by Megan Turney)

Hannah is a middle-aged, Danish author of literary fiction. She’s aloof, a loner, and drinks too much. Hannah loses her temper with a fellow writer, Jørn Jensen, at a book festival. He’s a popular mystery writer and Hannah disains him and his genre. She takes him up on a challenge. Of course she can write a thriller in 30 days!

Bastian, Hannah’s agent, arranges for her to stay with Ella, a woman in her 60s, in the remote town of Húsafjörður, Iceland. In the long, dark days of winter, surely Hannah will achieve her goal.

She’s barely settled into the old house when a local teenager, Thor, is found dead. Hannah decides she’ll insert herself into the investigation as a way to understand the nature of crime, even though at first it’s not clear whether Thor has been murdered.

No matter, Hannah plows ahead with her sleuthing, antagonizing the local police officer and putting herself in danger. Somebody shoots up Ella’s house. Hannah refuses to stay inside when a blizzard paralyzes the town. A suspect pushes Hannah out a window.

Through it all, Hannah ponders and writes. Maybe falls in love. Definitely opens up her heart and mind to the possibility that she needs (wants?) other people in her life.

Thirty Days of Darkness defies categorization. It is fast-paced, yet thought-provoking. It subtly mocks the mystery genre yet is a true thriller.

The characters are quirky and interesting. Hannah refers to them by nicknames; the local bartender is “the leather vest.” Thor’s father is “the stone man."

Then there’s the mysterious Ella, who can understand Danish, but refuses to speak it. She communicates with Hannah by writing brief notes in broken Danish: “You use masse swearing og foul language.”  She’s not wrong.

These missives often brought a smile to my face, along with Hannah’s “hell bent for leather” attitude. She is weary and wordly-wise and totally naive, all at the same time.

The comic elements don’t diminish the import of the tragic situation in the past that led to Thor’s murder. The conclusion is satisfying, and achieved by solid detection on Hannah’s part—despite herself, and with the help of her newfound friends.