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The Long Water

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The Long Water

By: Stef Penney
Narrated by: Sofia Engstrand
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About this listen

 Author of the Costa-prizewinning, world-wide bestseller The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney, returns to her snow-covered heartland in this tense mystery set in a small Scandinavian town.

Nordland. A region in the Norwegian Arctic; a remote valley that stretches from the sea up to the mountains and glaciers.

It is May in what was once a prosperous mining community. The snows are nearly gone and it's a time of spring and school-leavers' celebrations - until Daniel, a popular teenage boy, goes missing. Conflicting stories circulate among his friends, of parties and wild behaviour.

As the search for Daniel widens, the police open a disused mine in the mountains. They find human remains, but this body has been there for decades, its identity a mystery.

Everyone in this tight knit, isolated community is touched by these events: misanthropic Svea, whose long life in the area stretches back to the heyday of the mines, and beyond. She has cut all ties with her family, except for her granddaughter, Elin, an outsider like her grandmother. Elin and her friend Benny, both impacted by Daniel while he was alive, become entangled in the hunt for answers, while Svea has deep, dark secrets of her own.©2024 Stef Penney (P)2024 Quercus Editions Limited Crime Thrillers International Mystery & Crime Mystery Thriller & Suspense Wolf
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A beautiful world created with empathy, colour and insight. The resolution (in both senses) was excellent. High-quality narration as well.

A wonderful and hopeful story

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The excellent reading of this novel shifts us from character to character seamlessly.
Penney’s understanding and empathy with both young and old and the experiences in life that shape us, makes this book about a community and its history fascinating.
The story of a modern horror - the disappearance of a young man, and the discovery of a man’s body that has been hidden for decades, tie in the relationships, both platonic and familial of the townsfolk.
Penney is kind to the reader in that she keeps our closest characters safe though not unaffected by the events.
As with all Penney’s works, descriptions of the geography and how the light affects mood and place, are sharp and enthralling. Spanning post WW11 to modern day- highlighting how attitudes and understanding of neurodivergence and gender roles has changed- present the modern world as both enlightened and baffling in equal measure.
An extremely nourishing audio experience.

Magnificent and satisfying- Stef Penney at her subtle and intelligent best

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