I’m excited to welcome you today to my stop on the blog tour for the brilliant Bad Apples by Will Dean. Thank you to Anne Cater and Point Blank for giving me the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book.
About the book:
A murder
A resident of small-town Visberg is found decapitated in the forest
A festival
An isolated hilltop community celebrates ’Pan Night’ after the apple harvest
A race against time
As Visberg closes ranks, there could not be a worse time for Tuva Moodyson to arrive as deputy editor of the local newspaper. Tuva senses the scoop of her career, unaware perhaps that she is the story…
Set in Sweden’s Halloween season, when the forests are full of elk hunters and the town of Visberg is thick with the aroma of rotting fruit, BAD APPLES is a thrilling introduction for readers new to the series, and for die-hard #TeamTuva fans, a heart-stopping rollercoaster…
About the author:
WILL DEAN grew up in the East Midlands and lived in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. His debut novel, Dark Pines, was selected for Zoe Ball’s Book Club, shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize and named a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year.
The second Tuva Moodyson thriller, Red Snow, won ‘Best Independent Voice’ at the Amazon Publishing Readers’ Awards, 2019, and was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2020.
The third novel, Black River, has been longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2021.
Rights for the series have been sold in eight territories (France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Poland, Czech Republic, China and Turkey). Will lives in Sweden where the Tuva Moodyson novels are set.
TV Rights to Dark Pines have been optioned by Lionsgate, the producers of Mad Men, with plans for a multi-part series featuring Tuva Moodyson.
My Review:
Bad Apples by Will Dean is the fourth book in the Tuva Moodyson series of novels that began with the brilliant Dark Pines. Now settled in Gavrik, journalist Tuva Moodyson finds herself investigating a chilling story just as Halloween approaches. A headless corpse has been discovered in Utgard forest and Tuvya is determined to get to the truth, even at the expense of her own safety.
Tuva is a fascinating character who I feel like I’ve got to know well over the course of the four books so far. I love that the author has written a strong female character with a disability without it being the main focus of the story. Tuva’s deafness is a part of who she is, but there’s so much more to her than that. She’s strong, determined and never lets anything get in her way. And once she gets her teeth into a story there’s no stopping her.
Will Dean is excellent at building up the mystery and suspense and this is used to great effect in this story, especially as it is set during Halloween, a time when everything always seems that much more scary. Attending a strange festival on Pan Night after the apple harvest, Tuva is spooked by what she experiences there, with the dark and atmospheric setting all adding to the eeriness of the story, bringing it vividly to life.
Bad Apples could easily be read as a standalone thriller, but I do think that reading the previous three books first makes for a much richer and more rewarding reading experience. Tuva is a fascinating character who I’m liking more and more with every book and I look forward to learning even more about her in the future.
With a strong cast of supporting characters and an underlying sense of menace throughout, Bad Apples is a superbly plotted, well paced thriller that keeps you guessing right up until the final page has been turned. As someone who loved the first three books in the series I did wonder if the author would be able to keep the momentum going, but I needn’t have worried as he does so with ease. Tuva Moodyson is fast becoming one of my favourite characters and I can’t wait to see what Will Dean has in store for her next!
Bad Apples is a thrilling rollercoaster of a tale that takes full advantage of its Swedish setting and I loved every word of it. A chilling thriller full of intrigue and suspense, it is the perfect book to curl up with this Halloween.
Highly recommended.
Bad Apples by Will Dean is available to purchase now:
Check out what these other lovely bloggers have to say about this book:
Cal Turner Reviews 
Huge thanks for the blog tour support x
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