Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of this book, but my review and comments are my own.

I've read, devoured, and eagerly awaited the next Tuva book since Dean first released Dark Pines. For fans of the series, Bad Apples slowly turns up the creepy horror element up a notch. If I'd read this first, I think it would just tip me over the edge past the enjoyment phase, but as all his books have been just a little more creepy than the last, I feel I'm acclimatised by it all! (Also, this says far more about my intolerance for horror, than it does about Dean's writing!).

We follow Tuva as she settles back into Toytown, after her promotion - and part of her new role is covering the news for Visberg as well as Gavrick - meaning we get a whole new cast of wild and wonderful characters!

The tension, the traditions, the 'this is so wild I can't even picture what this room looks / smells like', is so wonderfully crafted - it comes to the climax so viscerally (I swear parts of my body actually hurt reading this scene), that I needed the last few pages for my heart to calm down a little.

We've seen Tuva grow, mature, deal with the trauma of past cases, and so the ending of this one has me on the edge of the edge of the edge of my seat, and I NEED book 5, like, NOW, please and thank you.

OMG what a book , what an ending, what an absolutely brilliant read !
I have loved every book featuring Tuva Moodyson but this one was by far my favourite so far and I am now chomping at the bit waiting for the next in the series as I’m desperate to find out more, I can’t say anymore but if you read the book you will know what I mean.
Will Dean has written another fabulously atmospheric thriller with the wonderful Tuva at the helm and this one is one hell of a gruesome tale it gave me shivers down my spine and I loved every page!
This author has got an ability to make you actually feel the darkness in the story not only with the vivid descriptions of the scenery but also with a cast of weird and wonderful characters present in the story and this book certainly has plenty of those.
It’s a creepy story even more than previous books but it’s also an excellent thriller with many of the characters from previous books and also lots of new and very strange and eerie ones also.
If you haven’t read any of the books in the series and you want a damn good read then please give them a try this one can be read d as a stand-alone but it’s a shame to miss out on the back story of Tuva and many of the other characters in the books just a warning though once you pick this book and others up you won’t be able to put them down they are all amazing!
Can’t praise the book and author enough I loved everything about it many thanks to Will Dean for an outstanding read that deserves more than the five stars I can give.
My thanks also to NetGalley and Oneworld Publications, Point Blank for giving me the chance to read the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thanks to Oneworld and Netgalley for ARC.

Journalist Tuva Moodyson is back from Malmo at Gavrik Posten, promoted to deputy editor and with a bigger geographical area to cover. This includes isolated hill town Visberg, where a grisly murder isn't the only terrifying thing going on .

The opening chapter is terrifying and the pace keeps up until the last sentence. I really could not put this down but didn't want it to end. Especially not like that!
This a Scandi-gothic chiller and Tuva and the ones she loved are in for more tension and danger than ever before.
I love the Tuva series, and Tuva remains as spiky and engaging as ever.

You could start here, but if you haven't met Tuva it would be more fun to start from the beginning and watch the whole thing unfold.

I've read all of the Tuva Moodyson books and I absolutely love them all. This book is no exception and Will Dean continues to develop this series in the best way possible, I love the way Will Dean writes and how he constantly keeps the reader on edge. The book is dark, atmospheric and gripping filled with interesting and weird characters. All in all, this is another dark instalment in the Tuva Moodyson series with an ending that blew me away.

I highly recommend this book and series. Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for this advanced copy.

Love Tuva and can't wait to meet her again. Such an atmospheric read. Captures the mood of the area and it's people superbly. Terrified of Pan night.

Latest in Tuva Moodyson series. Tuva, a deaf journalist moves to a remote town in Sweden to take up a new job as deputy editor in local newspaper and finds a lot of strange things happening, starting with finding a decapitated man in the forest. She is now in a relationship with Noor, a local policewoman and is happy.
I enjoyed Will’s style of writing and descriptions of the local area and people but found the storyline slow at times and had worked out one of the culprits early on.
This book is for people who like something different from the normal run of the mill thrillers with a touch of black humour thrown in.
Would put me off returning to Sweden though.
4 Stars ⭐️
Thanks to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair review.

The latest Tuva Moodyson episode is a dark tale of misdeeds and murders back on her Gavric Posten beat. A headless corpse in the forest gets things off to a rollicking start and her investigations featuring some characters from the previous stories all assist in this disturbing but fascinating yarn. A small town on top of a mountain full of weird people and customs is central to the hunt for the perpetrator and eventually a horrific final few chapters with amateur dentistry at its core seemingly bring it to an end but the last few lines keep things brewing for the next time! Brilliant.

Tuva is back in Gavrick, with a supportive girlfriend, a best friend that brings great food and a promotion. All seems to be going well for Tuva until she stumbles upon a decapitated body in the Visberg hills.

If you haven’t read any of Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson series before, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Pick up ‘Dark Pines’ now! If you have read the first three books in the series you know what to expect: a plucky protagonist, a cracking mystery, and a hell of a lot of creepiness. The perfect Halloween read.

My only small criticism of Dean’s writing is his tendency to end almost all the chapters on a cliff-hanger, which can lessen the effect of the bigger bombshells along the way.

People will be itching to get their hands on book five once they’ve finished ‘Bad Apples’ so I hope Will Dean is furiously typing to get it on shelves for us ASAP.

Thank you NetGalley and Oneworld for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Another great read in this brilliant series.
Tuva stumbles across a body and later finds out the victim has been decapitated.
She is now covering the news stories in Visberg but it’s a very closed off village, and the residents have their own way of doing things.
Tuva wants to find out who killed the man that she came across but finds it hard to get the villagers to open up to her.
This is a dark crime thriller with some great descriptions of life in Visberg. It’s certainly not somewhere I’d like to visit.
The book has a real nail biting final few chapters, with more than one character fighting for their life.
This is a great read that could be read as a standalone but I’d highly recommend the three books before this one.
Thanks to Point Blank and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Bad Apples by Will Dean is the fourth Book in the Tuva Moodyson series.
Deaf Journalist Truva returns to Gavrik to take a job as deputy editor for the local paper. When in the nearby town of Visberg a body is found with its head decapitated. Once again, Truva gets involved to find out who the killer is with the local police. It’s October and its Halloween and while she is searching for answers weird things are going on in the town. Which coincides with the body that is found.
Thanks, NetGalley and Oneworld publications for a copy of Bad Apples. I wasn’t aware this was the fourth book in the series, and I have not read the previous books. I enjoyed his previous book Last thing to burn which was a standalone, so I was looking forward to reading this. Let me first say, this is not a bad book. It is well written, gripping spooky thriller. But as I had not read the previous books in this series. I felt like I was missing something and had trouble connecting to the protagonist because of it. Maybe in the future I will start from the beginning and re read this book and re value my review. But for now it’s 3.5 stars from me.

If you’re looking for a creepy thriller with a gloomy, atmospheric setting this Halloween, then look no further! Noone writes a creepy forest better than Will Dean.

I’ve been a fan of the Tuva Moodyson series since the start and snapped up the book as soon as I could press “request” on Netgalley (thank you so much for granting me my wish!). Tuva, a journalist in a small remote Swedish town, stumbles once again into disaster when she comes across a decapitated corpse in the creepy forest surrounding the town. Even though it’s hard to believe, things go even further downhill from here. I love the way Dean’s mind works, and how he manages to create sinister scenes out of seemingly harmless everyday situations. For example, the image of the child biting into a rotten apple (mind the book’s title) was so creepy I am still thinking about it, and this was nothing compared to Dean’s other creations: the sinister trolls carved by the two creepy sisters, the balloons made out of animal intestines, the stuffed animals with dental work, a forest teeming with slugs and poisonous mushrooms etc etc. Dean writes in a way that brings all these nightmarish images to life like a dark creepy movie, and I loved every minute of it!

Dean has run with the Halloween topic and made it firmly his own. Though Halloween is celebrated by the children in Gavrik, the small neighbouring hilltown of Visberg has their own dark tradition: Pan Night. It makes Halloween a candyland paradise in comparison, because the happenings on Pan Night, to which only locals are invited, are very sinister indeed. And of course Tuva, who can never resist putting herself in danger, manages a sneak peak that will almost be her undoing.

Tuva is one of my favourite characters in crime fiction. Even though she is one tough cookie, Dean also manages to paint her vulnerable side: the grief for her deceased parents, her addictions, her deafness, her struggles with her sexuality. I was happy to see that she has not only made some great friends in Gavrik, but has also found love with Noora, grounding her somewhat. Being a journalist rather than a detective, Tuva leads us into the murder investigation from a completely different angle, which makes this series extra special to me.

All in all, BAD APPLES is another deliciously dark instalment in Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson series, and maybe his creepiest yet? And even though he ending was wayyyyy out there, I loved the reel of dark and spooky images the book created in my mind. Coming out just in time for Halloween it’s the perfect spooky read to get into the spirit of the season – if you haven’t discovered this series yet, what are you waiting for?

Buy this book - NOW! -and also do yourselves a huge favour by reading the others in Dean's Tuva Moodyson series.
That could end my review of this latest 'Bad Apples' because I have frankly run out of worthy praise for this exceptional Scandi Noir collection.
The plot begins in a massive grim discovery and the theme of that death continues a gruesome pace through the slow, snow bound towns of this spooky part of Sweden. Th ere was a point when we were reunited with the great characters of the Troll making twin sisters that I knew our raft of suspects had upped its mark. Together with an almost orgy like Scandinavian Pan Night that leaves any Halloween celebration this year as a tame Scream masked teddy bears picnic, the ensuing horror escalates daily.
So is there any respite from the gore? Plenty because the author has formed Tuva into a great person, yes with her own childhood and traumatic demons but with enduring hope, humour and a well earned love interest in girlfriend Noora. As a investigative journalist Tuva has a steely search radar that uncovers ever growing 'bad stuff' including a weird clockmaker, a stunted child in height and maturity who has candy bracelets and an ex East European hunk run a pizzeria who may well have blood on his hands....does the underlying threat of bad kids playing video games with serious violence always mean psychopaths are bred? Who are this posh Edlund family with dentist drills and a posh golf club?The outside world seeps into the Gavrik and Visberg but mostly they remain a world apart. Here lies why such places prove dangerous and why the police (including even a Sheriff) need clever Tuva to aid in their investigations.
It may seem too far fetched? No that's the joy of this series. The grimness of the crimes, the dark characters and the towns (now extended to a weird one up an icy hill) bring into sharp focus Tuva's constant willingness to fight her corner even when she becomes the one backed horribly into it. We have followed her away to other parts of Sweden, to London - yet here is home. Is it?
I didn't totally guess the murderer.......but beware that just when you thought all was resolved.......
It's hard to say more. Really because there would be too many spoilers and that shows how tightly well written it is.
At one point the twin towers of the Gavrik liquorice factory loom and guide our brave journalist like the spectacled eyes of Dr T J Eckleburg in 'The Great Gatsby'. Location is the bridge in that great book and here with Will Dean I continue to find as a reader new hope as we follow the green light. Please don't let the 'Bad Apples' rot completely.....we shall want more!

These books really leave me in two minds. I’ll try and explain the best I can.

So, what I really like about this series is the darkness of it, the very strange characters that are the village folk, and of course, Tuva Moodyson herself. The storylines are full of mystery with plenty of red herrings to throw you off the scent which I think is great, and also the build up in tension in some of the scenes is absolutely fantastic. The thing I seem to be struggling with though is the pace in the book. For some reason it doesn’t constantly hold my attention and for me personally, I like a thriller to have such a pace that I can barely catch my breath. Don’t get me wrong, at times I did feel that when reading this book, but it just wasn’t consistent enough for my liking.
I do just have to point out though that this book does have the mother of all endings which will ensure I read the next instalment.

I rate this book 3 and a half.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Oneworld Publications for an advance copy of Bad Apples, the fourth novel to feature Swedish journalist Tuva Moodyson.

Tuva is back in Värmland with a promotion and an extended beat. She will now be covering the remote hillside town of Visberg, where after her first visit she discovers the body of a murdered man. This is not the last strange event in the closed, insular community of Visberg.

I enjoyed Bad Apples, which has an interesting take on morality and small insular communities. It is told entirely from Tuva the outsider’s point of view and as she’s quite nosy she is perfectly placed to investigate the murder.

The plot is quite slow but never less than interesting and often cedes its place at the centre of the novel to the atmosphere. This is where I fail because I found it hard to take Visberg seriously. The town is ruled by a rich elite and there is a physical divide between them and the regular working folk, each keeping to their own side of town. Then there are the inhabitants, one stranger than the next. Finally there is the Pan festival where the town is sealed off and basically becomes an orgy of bad behaviour. All this is overlaid by the smell of rotten apples that aren’t cleaned up. It has the makings of horror fiction. Nevertheless Tuva continues to investigate, and that, stripped of the extraneities, is good. The mystery of what has happened and the ongoing baffling incidents is quite compulsive and full of misdirection. The solution comes out of left field, is totally unexpected and ends up being quite tense. Job done or so the reader thinks until a final cliffhanger.

I like Tuva Moodyson as she is smart and dedicated. She’s not afraid to express her emotions, often fear, despite her hang ups and has a nice line in sarcastic asides. She is profoundly deaf, but seems to navigate the world well. As I know nothing about deafness I don’t know how accurate this portrayal is.

Bad Apples is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.

Firstly I want to praise Will Dean for the dedication. I really relate to this and wholeheartedly agree.

Tuva Moodyson leaves behind Gavrik for another new job in the neighbouring town of Visberg.

Now, if we thought Gavrik was full of odd characters wait until you meet Visberg’s locals. They too are all unique, hold family secrets and Tuva is in a mission to expose them after a body is found minus its head 😬

It’s Halloween and weird things are happening and Tuva being the unluckiest newspaper reporter falls smack bang in the middle of it.

Another great instalment to the series and can’t wait to catch up with what happens in the next book.

Will Dean returns us to the horror nightmare that is the remote Swedish town of Gavrick, featuring his deaf protagonist, the newspaper journalist, Tuva Moodyson. She has returned to the Gavrick Posten, now promoted to Deputy Editor by Lena, delighted to be back in the company of friend, Tammy, local cop Thord, and the woman she is in a relationship with, Noor. She has a new apartment with arguing neighbours with a young son, Dan. With what unfolds in the dark forests, echoing with constant gunfire, it is elk hunting season, with the secrets harboured in the hill town of Visberg, and characters that would fit right into the darkest of fairytales, you have to wonder what Tuva was thinking in coming back. It all begins with Tuva thrashing through the foggy forests, following the ghostly sounds of a screaming woman, finding her covered in blood, next to a decapitated dead man.

The victim turns out to be plumber Arne Gustav Persson, a resident of the creepy town and closed community of Visberg, where everyone knows and is related to everyone, with its strict divisions between the wealthy Edlands and the rest of the locals. The stench of rotting apples pervades the place in the approach to Halloween, as Tuva endeavours to get to know the people and embed herself as the go to person and primary contact, hoping to be privy to the secrets and gossip, and the below the radar shadowy adult celebrations of Pan Night, an ancient cult like darkness. The makers of gruesome trolls, Cornelia and Alice Sorlie have opened a pop up shop, where Tuva acquires a mask to infiltrate the pagan and demonic Pan celebrations, the chanting, the bladder balloons, wild sex, and so much more, a people let off the leash for one night, to be uninhibited and glorying in becoming savages. Once again Tuva is to find herself in danger, being shot at, with worse to come.

Dean has written the perfect spine chilling read for the dark Autumn and Winter nights, particularly Halloween, the narrative heaves with atmosphere, and the location is a menacing and malevolent character in its own right. His wide array of characters that inhabit the story are inspired, the strange and offbeat locals, new and old, ensure that the series will remain a favourite with readers. This is for those who want their crime fiction to be at its darkest, a fright fest to savour. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

Oh my! What an amazing, fabulous, spooky, thrilling, scary ride. Loved every page!

I'll start by saying that I'm a massive fan of this amazing author and have, to date, read all of his books. This is one in a series of Tuva Moodyson mysteries, but, it can easily be enjoyed as a stand alone and in my opinion is the best in the series. Although, if you haven't read the earlier books, please do as they set up this book brilliantly.

Tuva is such an interestingly well written character and I've grown to love her. It's a book set in a remote Swedish town and it's so well written that you feel you know the area and the inhabitants, but, I'll definitely not be booking a visit anytime soon! It's got; murder, weirdness, fabulous characters, spooky tales and absolutely hooked me from the first page to the last.

I'll miss the fabulous characters and I feel that I know that mountain drive, but, please read after you've seen your dentist!


A fabulous full 5* for this cracker of a murder mystery and I cannot recommend highly enough. Congratulations to Will Dean and thanks so much to Goodreads and the publishers OneWorld Publications for the honour of previewing post publication. To anyone to loves a thrilling mystery; order now, you'll love it!

An intriguing and surreal tale of a reporter who has moved to a remote Swedish Town and who arrives to find that a murder has been committed.

The police are baffled and so she must investigate the eccentric inhabitants of the town to try to make sense of the killing.

I found it readable and wanted to find out what would happen.

Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy.

Tuva is one of my favourite characters in recent years and I was delighted to get an ARC for this one (Out in Sept I think). I absolutely loved being back with her this lives up to my excitement. If you're a fan of the series you're in for a treat.

Great to see a fourth Tuva Moodyson novel. Will Dean has created an unusual sleuth in this journalist working in a small town in Sweden. His descriptions of its endless dark forest as usual play a role in evoking an atmosphere of fear each time Tuva sets foot in it. After the discovery of a headless corpse there she hopes to write a good story for her newspaper and investigates with the help of the local police.
Tuva finds many of the local townspeople and their special customs weird and frightening. The novel descends into a semi-horror story which seems to lose the plot and its credibility as Tuva becomes more involved in her search for the murderer.
A gripping tale but not as good as the previous ones in the series.