Before I start my review, I want to mention a strange coincidence. The main character in this book is Pastor Laestadius, important to a historical religious revival in far northern Sweden and Finland, Sami territory. I thought the name sounded familiar, but it wasn’t his name I googled but “Old Apostolic Lutheran Church.” What I read was, “The Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of America is a Firstborn Laestadian-Evangelical Church in America.” Now, the reason I googled this topic is because when we moved to Southwestern Washington, we accidentally moved into one of two areas of the country that has lots of Old Apostolic Lutherans. In a mainly rural county that has mostly small churches, they have four large ones. Some coincidence, huh?
Enough of that.
Jussi is the narrator for most of the novel. He is a Sami young man whom Pastor Laestadius rescued from poverty and a wandering life as a boy and taught to read and write. He is devoted to the Pastor, but he is very shy and seldom speaks. He is in love with a girl named Maria but never speaks to her.
In this area of far northern Sweden, there is a strong social division in 1852. The better off speak Swedish while the common people speak Finnish. The Pastor is a leader in a return to a stricter religion, and he has been receiving complaints from the more prosperous parishioners because the poor ones tend to fall into exaltation during his sermons, which the more prosperous think is unseemly.
Jussi himself believes that by teaching him to read and write, the Pastor brought him into existence, but he has had a brutal childhood and struggles sometimes with the Pastor’s teachings.
Then a girl is found dead, mutilated. The Pastor is a botanist and is very observant. Although Sheriff Brahe insists the girl was mauled by a bear, the Pastor observes signs that she was raped and murdered and that the killer used a knife to fake bear scratches. But the Sheriff, a brute and a bully, doesn’t listen.
When a bear is found and killed, everyone relaxes, but the Pastor and Jussi are afraid there will be another death. And there is an attack. At a dance, Jussi gets up the nerve to ask Maria to dance, and she does. The next day, the village awakens to find that another girl, Jolina, was attacked. She is not dead, but she will not say what happened. Later, she is found dead, and the Sheriff insists she killed herself. The Pastor begins to suspect the Sheriff.
The Pastor applies fairly modern techniques of detection that no one else understands. For example, he compares the shavings from a pencil and knows about fingerprints. But who can he even take his evidence to?
This is a thoroughly absorbing story. Although the murder story is fictional, it also tells the story of a rebellion that is not fictional. In his Afterword, Niemi explains that he grew up near the site of Laestadius’s church and has always been fascinated by him.
What? Me Read? 