A review by henrymarlene
Scatter Her Ashes by Heine Bakkeid

4.0

Heine Balled has an interesting way of pulling you in slowly and shockingly into each twist, nook and cranny that ‘Scatter Her Ashes’ has to offer.  It is chilling. It is raw. It is visceral. It is creepy and sinister. This is a story that is clever and has some dark humour that shines through at the rights times to stop the edginess dragging you under. Thorkild Aske is damaged goods, but he is asked to step into an unusual case as a ‘consultant’ for a crime writer, Milla Lind. Yes - there is more to this story, but the totality of what the ‘more’ refers to isn’t what you think it will be. From the top and tail of Norway to a Russian prison, the experience of the bitter cold and landscapes do influence the bleakness of Thorkild, and the spiralling of his emotions and withdrawal symptoms throughout the course of the story. No one want to talk, no-one wants to share anything, no-one wants to spare the truth about two girls going missing from a local residential home. Or about Milla’s previous consultant’s death. Or even about Milla. And Milla’s novels about August Mugabe seem to hide a lot of home truths and pathways that either lead to a new twist or something more sinister. Thorkild seems to have a knack to deflect his flaws and highlight the same in others in order to discover the truth, without every dealing with his own. He has a way to apply the manic and strained conversations and thoughts in his own mind to what is happening around him in order to make sense of what he sees. Mind you, he’s also very clever at hiding that analysis from the reader, and what you may have thought was an obvious left turn was in fact a veer to the right with a hairpin u-turn. I was lured in with this novel, and it was worth the wait to reel it all in.