Ellen Blind is nearly old enough to leave school, but her brother Simon seems much younger, as he is a fourteen-year-old boy with Asperger’s. Together they have travelled north from Stockholm to a remote mining town, where their late grandfather came from. The two young people are being got out of the way of quarrelling parents, and there isn’t much to do but cycle around the woodland roads. But EMBERS of the past are about to burst into flame.

The native Sami who live simply here, are reindeer herders still, but clash with contemporary Swedes, who not only control the land around Svartjokk, they import Thai seasonal workers to pick the berries. Someone resents the Sami enough to poison a lake and kill a reindeer herd. A gruesome sight awaits the two city kids as they explore the woodland. At this point, I need to say that the book is supposedly for YA readers under twelve years, and already you can tell this is reading much more like a Scandi noir case for adults. In conversation with a YA fantasy author, I was told that parents often say his work is extraordinary but no way suitable for young readers. Whereas he believes YA readers need something large and scary and desperate, grand themes and life or death struggles. Fantasy is different, however, from real-life social politics, intergenerational conflict, racism and exploitation.  

Simon, with his unsettling observation, certainty and persistence, takes the lead role as an investigator into the macabre animal deaths. The police don’t seem to want to look too closely, and a journalist hopes for a story but only provides some background, as she seems to be a staff of one. What else did she have to do? would be my reaction. This is a small, scruffy town. Tourists are only entertained by a look at the midnight sun.

Josephine Greenland has addressed some strong themes in her first novel, and I believe has emphasised the unpleasant scenes. She may have been pointing at the sad reality, since she tells us in a note that some similar events have occurred. That’s her choice, but I had to take a few days over the read as the tone was upsetting me. Otherwise, the standard detection formula is present. I found some odd juxtapositions; in a town inside the Arctic Circle, a mother brings home oranges; nobody hires local pickers for the cloudberry and lingonberry season, preferring to import people from South-East Asia. EMBERS is unusual, highly informative and brings a modern look to an ancient way of life.