For thirty years already, the journalist, novelist and documentary filmmaker Olivier Truc, based in Sweden, has been exploring Lapland. In 2012, he created the characters of Klemet Nango and Nina Nansen, inspectors of the reindeer police, a unit created in 1949 to resolve border conflicts between herders. “The First Renne”, fifth part of the series started with The Last Rabbit, takes up the ingredients which made the success of these French-style Nordic thrillers: a criminal case to be solved by the two investigators, geopolitical ramifications and intimate issues who run from one book to another.
We are pleased to find Klemet and Nina, but also the secondary characters: Nils-Ante, Klemet’s uncle, and his Chinese girlfriend, Changounette, Berit, the old friend to whom the policeman entrusted the young female reindeer that he breeds illegally since only Sami have the right to own them.
And the mystery thickens a little more
It is precisely during the fawn marking season that this new investigation by the reindeer police begins, which takes place not under the snow but under the perpetual sun of Midsommar, the summer solstice celebrations. While a herd of reindeer was hit by a train, following a criminal act, Aaron, a young Sami, is found dead of a gunshot to the heart. His sister, Anja, guardian of traditions against the colonization of her territory, will meet Joseph Cabanis, a sheep breeder who has come from the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence to track down the wolf.
When Hou Chi, a Chinese immigrant survivor of the one-child policy, arrives clandestinely to work in the extraction of rare earths, the mystery thickens a little more. A captivating dive into the rites of the Sami people and the sumptuous landscapes of Lapland in the footsteps of an introspective cop straddling two cultures.
“The First Reindeer”, Olivier Truc, Métailié, 528 pages, 22 euros
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