Seeds of Destruction by
Tim Goodwin
hbk out August 98
Published by Constable
at £16.99
Sergeant Tomes Larsen of the Royal Greenland Police - the Royal signifying the Danish Royal house - is sent from the comparative comfort of the capital Godthab across the ice-cap to Sermilik in the North West to investigate the death of a man believed to have been stabbed by his wife. Larsen comes originally from Sermilik and is not keen to return to the place. The town has a high death rate, massive unemployment and disintegrating families. There is also something else which he is at first only dimly aware of, but it concerns Otto Frederiksen, a Dane who is the richest man in Sermilik, the largest employer and the owner of the seed bank. Larsen finds Frederiksen unhelpful and shortly afterwards the Dane is killed. A high-flying American business woman, Marian Kinsky, seems to be implicated, as Larsen discovers when he is trapped in the seed bank complex. Indeed his investigation puts his life in danger several times and he comes very near to death when he is forced to plunge into an ice-cold lake to escape a sniper.
Larsen is a convincing hero, fallible and human, and the reader warms to him as he plods on with the case. The author knows his Greenland setting well and gives the reader an informed insight into one of the more unfamiliar parts of the world. One becomes aware of the distances involved and of the tension between the indigenous population, the Inuit, who hate to be called Eskimos, and the ruling Danes, which is effectively conveyed as the narrative proceeds. It is clearly seen in the relations between Gudrun Eistrup, the Danish girl, and Larsen, but the highlight comes in the exchange between Evat the helicopter pilot, like Larsen an Inuit, and Larsen. Evat denies knowing Godthab and Larsen patiently explains that Godthab is the capital of Greenland. Evat then points out that the capital of Kalaallit Nunaat is Nuk. Larsen concedes defeat, with apologies.
This is the first crime novel by an author who, the blurb tells us, is fascinated by the far north and has travelled widely in Scandinavia, including Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat). He has used his experience well and the reader is forced to keep turning the pages. Perhaps Sergeant Tomes Larsen, promoted at the end of the case, will make a welcome return.
Seeds of Destruction by
Tim Goodwin