Olivier Truc continues with his best-selling pentalogy set in Lapland, between Sweden and Norway. The third book, La montagne rouge (The Red Mountain), has just been acquired by Éditions Métailié for publication in its French original language in October 2016.
La montagne rouge (The Red Mountain) continues with the rainy and extremely atmospheric setting in Lapland. While the Balva clan conduct the annual slaughter of the reindeer, human bones are found at the foot of the Red Mountain. Tensions in the region escalate as the clan opposes a group of farmers in a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Stockholm. In this third installment, Olivier Truc digs into the issues of land rights. Who is the owner of the land? Who arrived there first?
Always planned as a pentalogy, La montagne rouge (The Red Mountain) follows his debut novel Le dernier lapon (The Last Sami, published in English as Forty Days Without a Shadow) about a murder in a small town in Scandinavia, home to the indigenous Sami nation. First published by Éditions Métailié in 2012, it has been translated in 15 different languages and has received raving reviews from the press. It also won the Prix Quais du polar, Prix Mystère de la critique, Trophée 813, Prix Salon du Polar de Montigny for Best Crime novel in French, the Prix Inter polar du Festival Polar de Reims and the prix Plume Polar for a francophone thriller, among many other awards. The original French edition has sold over 130.000 copies in trade and pocket edition combined.
The New York Journal of Books said: «Forty Days Without Shadow is more than a splendidly told murder investigation and its consequences. It is a fascinating telling of bloody history, culture, and indigenous people struggling against all odds to survive. The winter scenes are frighteningly real, at times leaving you breathless and filled with awe.»
Le dernier lapon is currently being adapted into a graphic novel, to be published by Éditions Sarbacanne in early 2017, here’s a first look!
The second book, Le détroit du Loup (The Wolf Strait), was out in 2014 also with Éditions Métailié in French and is being translated into several languages too. The Wolf Strait tells about a centuries-old culture which fights for its survival in a region where the recent development of oil and gas drilling gives priority to the collective interest of a country over personal local fates, playing the benefit of some against the desires of others.
«A brilliant thriller, rich and exotic as one could wish, reaching out from one point to another under the stabbing light of a night-less spring.» Philippe Blanchet, Figaro Magazine
«Set in a harsh environment, unfamiliar to the reader, Olivier Truc manages to captivate and advocate the Sami cause.» Jean-Claude Perrier, Livres Hebdo
French author Olivier Truc has been based in Stockholm since 1994. He is currently correspondent for Le Monde, and has worked also for Libération and Le Point.
For more information, contact Marina Penalva.
Olivier Truc’s rights are co-managed by Pontas Agency and Hedlund Agency.