Only the Dead

Author: Vidar Sundstøl

A sweeping chronicle of several generations, a portrait of a landscape, and a novel about migration: it is also the story of two murders that occur over a hundred years apart. It is immediately clear both murders are connected the large Norwegian immigrant population living on the northern shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota, Cook County. Lance Hansen — a US forestry police officer of Scandinavian descent — finds a Norwegian tourist brutally murdered next to a large stone cross on the shore of Lake Superior. FBI agent Bob Lecuyer is put on the case, along with Norwegian detective Eirik Nyland sent over from Norway. The investigation soon leads the detectives towards the local Ojibway Indian population, after forensic evidence shows that only someone of Indian descent can be the perpetrator. At the same time, Lance Hansen makes a shocking discovery about his own family’s past; a discovery that means that the investigation could point to a completely different suspect, someone much closer to home than he could ever have imagined.