Good and ill
a horrifying crime from years before. It’s an atmospheric, chilling tale with a fascinating heroine, though one that Dean himself thought may make it a hard-sell to publishers, as he was “an English dude in a forest in Sweden writing a deaf woman and the books are a bit like Twin Peaks”.
But unlike Dean’s previous efforts, which struggled to gain traction with literary agents, Dark Pines got plenty of agent interest and was snapped up for publication very quickly by a small literary publisher, who took a chance. It paid off, with that book, then series (Red Snow and Black River have followed, with a fourth out later this year), connecting with a fastgrowing readership garnering critical acclaim and awards listings. It is now in development for a television series.
While the Tuva series was taking hold the past few years, Dean was also working on what he called his “secret project” — the manuscript that became The Last Thing to Burn. The idea came one midnight in the forest and kept him awake until morning. “The reason why it hit me, I think, was partly that the idea is so simple,” he says. “It’s two characters in a dilapidated farm on the Fens. So, it’s really claustrophobic and intimate, almost more like a play than a movie.”
Describing himself as a writer who’s more “interested in the feels”, in how something affects him on a human, emotional level rather than the intricacy of plotlines, Dean says the image that came to him of a woman on a farm in a very open landscape with no physical boundaries, a woman who “wanted to leave but could not, for myriad reasons”, really impacted him.
His new standalone takes the creepiness and tension threaded through the Tuva books, and amplifies it to near-excruciating levels. “We’re in a tiny dilapidated, cold cottage on the Fens, with a back bathroom the villain built himself which has a soft, damp floor like linoleum laid on to mud,” says Dean.
“A lot of early readers said they feel like they’re in this cottage where everything takes place. I just like the intensity of it.
“My favourite book in the world is
The Road, by Cormac Mccarthy — two characters: father and son. I love the fact you get to know those characters so deeply. And that’s what I try to do with
The Last Thing to Burn.
I want it to be all about these characters and particularly the characters in that landscape.”