Murder in the Faroes

The Blood Strand
A Faroes Novel
By Chris Ould
Titan Books, 2016

The Killing Bay
A Faroes Novel
By Chris Ould
Titan Books, 2017

Taking a respite from my recent Icelandic studies, I recently read a couple of murder mysteries by the UK author Chris Ould, a writer of numerous screenplays. The books discussed here concern an English DI named Jan Reyna, who is on administrative leave from an unexplained incident in a prior investigation. Jan was born in The Faroe Islands; he had left there with his mother (under strained circumstances) when he was a small child.  

The Blood Strand begins in The Faroes as Jan’s father, a wealthy owner of a fishing fleet, suffers a stroke under mysterious circumstances. Jan returns to visit him in hospital and to reconcile with his past—only to be thrown into a mysterious murder case. He has awkward meetings with his half-brothers, trying to uncover information about his mother and his other relations.  He also befriends Faroese police detective Hjalti Hentze who is looking at Jan’s stepfather’ case.

The Killing Bay takes up the action almost immediately after the end of Strand, its plot centers on a militant Greenpeace-style organization trying to disrupt a Faroese whale harvest. Jan is remains stuck in The Faroes (an improbable situation that almost becomes a running joke), still climbing his family tree and also obliquely helping (or hindering) Hjalti and a police investigation of a suspicious murder of a photographer affiliated with the anti-whaling group.

Ould is obviously an experienced writer of crime fiction. The books read like screenplays (I’m sure he has aspirations of turning them into a TV series) and have good descriptions of the islands, he has done his research. I found them to be a little shallow on character development. There is a lot of police procedure including most of the standard tropes: situation room, internal power struggles, deceptive interviews—its all part of the standard package. The somewhat far-fetched conceit of having an English DI working with the Faroese police is actually handled pretty well. There is also a fair sprinkling of quirky Faroese culture which adds interest to the story. One thing this novel does not have is gratuitous sex scenes—Jan’s most obvious love interest turns out to be his cousin!

These two books are part of a trilogy (The Fire Pit is the third volume) and can be read as a continuous story. If they were just a little better in writing, character development, and setting they would be great. My previous exposure to actual Faroese novels may have spoiled me. Of course, in the world of mass market fiction greatness is a quality usually not to be desired.  That said, I’ll probably read the third book if I get the chance.