Why a Booktrail?
1974: In the remote Swedish village of Blackwater, a double murder is discovered on Midsummer’s Eve and things are only set to get worse…
Blackwater
What you need to know before your trail
1974 Sweden
Annie Raft arrives with her daughter Mia in the remote Swedish village of Blackwater to join her lover Dan on a nearby commune.
It’s midsummer and spirits are high. However, she stumbles across a double murder scene and suddenly darkness descends on the village and on Annie, but not before she thinks she sees someone at the scene of the crime.
20 years later and with the crime still unsolved, Annie is afraid when she sees her daughter in the arms of a man – he reminds her of the stranger she saw in the woods all those years ago.
There are some faces you never forget…
Travel Guide
Blackwater may be fictional and just as well when you consider that the wood is a dark and scary place, where bodies are found and where crimes go unsolved.
The remote Swedish wilderness is chilling – located west of Röbäck, Umeå, as this is the church where they stop over before heading on up to the town of Blackwater.
Midsummer’s Eve, is a time of the year when magic is at its strongest, and where stories of folklore and mysticism abound. Young girls put flowers under their pillow and they are said to dream about the man they’ll marry. Nature is explored, hmse are decorated and excitement is in the air.
Not far from this scene there is a crime – two campers have been murdered in their tents beside the Lobber River (Lobbersjön)
This is the land of Nordic folklore and chilling settings – a lake which appears ‘oily in the stillness, as if the water were sticky’ for example or describing a canoe floating on the ‘skin of the water.
Very evocative and sensual but in a really chilling and isolating way. The sense of foreboding lies in wait on each and every page, you can feel the scratch of the branches on your face…
This is the land of midsummer and murder, a land of fantastical folklore and a unique way of living. Where the weather and landscapes have teeth, the wind bites and the snow slaps you in the face.
Welcome to Blackwater where you meet Lapps, Swedes and Norwegians – a community of sorts but where this remote part of Sweden swallows you up and gobbles you whole.
Where Next?
