Christa Lawler
For the past five years, lit lovers in Norway have had access to an award-winning crime novel set on Minnesota’s North Shore.
Word got back to the story’s birthplace.
Now “The Land of Dreams” has been translated into English, published by the University of Minnesota Press, and the author is returning to the scene of the crime. Vidar Sundstol will be a guest at Saturday’s Nordic Gala fundraiser and on Sunday will give a reading, sign books and be part of a Q&A at Norway Hall in Duluth.
“The Land of Dreams,” the first book of Sundstol’s Minnesota Trilogy, introduces Lance Hansen, a Cook County-based forest cop and local historian who stumbles on a homicide near Father Baraga’s Cross in Schroeder. The story includes two naked Norwegian tourists, one dead; a Norwegian detective; other investigators and the web of people in Hansen’s circle.
University of Minnesota Press also will publish the next two books in the series. “Only the Dead” will be released in the fall of 2014, “The Ravens Fall” is scheduled for fall of 2015.
The making of the novel
Sundstol spent two years living and writing in Two Harbors while his wife worked for the U.S. Forest Service. It wasn’t until he left northern Minnesota that he began writing a novel set in the area, though he said he knew right away that he would.
“Somewhere along the interstate, there is a place where the lake suddenly appears,” Sundstol said. “That did something to me, the sight of that large, grey (lake). I knew immediately I’d have to write something about it.”
The characters and plot developed whenever the Sundstol couple went for a long drive. It started when they spotted a motel in northern Minnesota that looked murder plot-ready.
“From there on, just for fun, we started to muse over who could possibly get killed at a place like that,” he said. “A Norwegian tourist who had come over to the North Shore, and maybe he got food-poisoned by lutefisk.
“We wondered what kind of a policeman might investigate a murder on the North Shore. … Was he married or divorced? Did he drink or not drink? After a year we had created a whole universe around (the story’s main character) Lance Hansen.”
Back in Norway, Sundstol relied on memory and Minnesota history and picture books to paint an accurate picture. He also relied on the area’s similarity to Norway.
“To me, sometimes it seemed like the Arrowhead region was a tip of Norway that had broken off and drifted off in the Atlantic, and all the Norwegian people in Norway had forgotten about it,” he said.
‘The Land of Dreams’
Lance Hansen is a police officer with the Superior National Forest, a job that usually entails citing civilians for offenses such as fishing without a license. While investigating an illegal campsite on federal land, he finds a shaken, bloodied and naked Norwegian tourist near Baraga’s Cross. A chase through the woods leads Hansen to another naked Norwegian tourist — this one dead, with a crushed skull.
While the FBI and Norwegian detective Eirik Nyland investigate the case, which has undertones of a hate crime, Hansen is consumed with guilt over a detail he’s kept from authorities. And as a historian, there is another nagging question: “Has there ever before been a murder in Cook County?”
“The Land of Dreams” mixes northern Minnesota personality ticks, the pride of heritage and detailed accounts of North Shore vistas.
It won the Riverton Prize for Best Norwegian Crime Fiction.
Copies of the book in its original Norwegian version began showing up in northern Minnesota after it was published in 2008. To which some of the credit must be given to Lise Lunge-Larsen.
The Duluth-based author’s friends in Norway were reading Sundstol and assumed Lunge-Larsen had been the one to recommend the mystery since it is set in her backyard.
“I sat down and I just read it,” she said. “It was just so great. I’m completely a mystery buff. Here was somebody who wrote this beautiful mystery that takes place in my (area). I was just completely enamored.”
She passed it on to other local native Norwegians and played a role in getting the book into the hands of the University of Minnesota Press.
“This is a fascinating, unique kind of story,” said Erik Anderson, regional trade editor. “It’s a new thing, but connects with the work we’ve done: regional writing, writing about the North Shore.”
While Nordic crime fiction — Steig Larsson, Jo Nesbo — currently is en vogue, Anderson said Sundstol’s trilogy is without the high casualty rates and violence.
“I actually like the fact that it cut against the grain of the Nordic crime genre,” Anderson said.
What the people are saying
The novel recently got a mention in the New York Times Book Review and was reviewed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Kirkus Review called “The Land of Dreams” “literate, lyrically descriptive and mystical,” and Publishers Weekly called it a “stellar psychological thriller” that “stunningly evokes the North Shore of Lake Superior and its people.” Both gave it a starred review.
Margi Preus, a Duluth-based author who has set her work in Norway, will lead a Q&A with Sundstol on Sunday at Norway Hall. She said she appreciated his use of tension and expects him to gain popularity in this area.
“I thought the book was great,” she said. “I can’t wait to read the next one. I thought he got the details of the North Shore really well. I felt like he did a really good job of giving a flavor and sense of place to someone who had never been there.”
Meanwhile, back in Norway, Sundstol has continued writing crime fiction outside of his successful trilogy. He just released an archeological thriller set in Italy.
If you go
What: Vidar Sundstol reading, Q&A and book signing
When: Noon Sunday
Where: Norway Hall, 21A N. Lake Ave., Duluth
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©2013 Duluth News Tribune (Duluth, Minn.)
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