To Cook a Bear by Mikael Niemi

 

To Cook a Bear 

by Mikael Niemi (translated from the Swedish by Deborah Bragan-Turner)

A review 

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People are greatly in fear of the devil. Especially when he comes in the guise of a wolf or a snake. But he is far more dangerous in human form. And most dangerous of all in the form of an angel. For when Satan himself transforms into an angel of light, it is hard to escape him…

Lars Levi Laestadius (1800 – 1861) was a Swedish pastor, botanist and author active in the far north of Sweden, and a key figure in the pietist Lutheran revival movement.  He was of Sami descent and had a Sami wife. One of the problems which plagued Sami communities at the time was alcoholism, a scourge which Laestadius had experienced first-hand as the son of an often absent and alcoholic father.  Indeed, one of the key aspects of Laestadius’ ministry was its emphasis on teetotalism.  This and other factors of the revivalist movement placed him in direct confrontation with the establishment.

Laestadius features as an unlikely detective in Mikael Naemi’s historical novel Koka Björn.  A runaway success in the author’s native Sweden, the novel is now being published in English as To Cook a Bear, in a masterful translation by Deborah Bragan-Turner. 

A milkmaid goes missing in the rural parish where Laestadius ministers to the faithful.  All clues point to an attack by a bear, which is captured and killed by the villagers some days later. Laestadius, however, is not convinced.  His suspicious are proven correct when attacks on young women resume, despite the bear’s capture.  Laestadius uses his keen sense of logic and observation, honed through years of botanical expeditions, as well as his understanding of human nature, to solve the mystery.

It is surprising how, at least in the hands of a good author, the tropes of crime fiction seem never to get old.  Sherlock Holmes had his chronicler, Watson, and the concept of a lead investigator and a sidekick is an almost inescapable feature of detective fiction. In Laestadius’ case, the assistant and narrator (at least, for most of the novel) is Jussi, a teenage runaway from the North, to whom the Preacher becomes a mentor.  Laestadius is pitted against Sheriff Brahe, who heads the official investigation alongside Constable Michelsson. Unlike Conan Doyle’s Lestrade, however, who is dedicated and determined if no match for Sherlock’s genius, Brahe is both incompetent and sleazy.  

There are nods to other well-worn tropes, such as (in one instance) a locked-room mystery of the type which has been puzzling crime readers since the Biblical tale of Bel and the Dragon. 

Francois-Auguste Biard, Laestadius preaching to the Sami

In the crowded market of crime fiction, To Kill a Bear stands out because it has the features of the best historical novels.  Rather than being an exotic appendage to the story, the setting becomes one with the reading experience, fuelling the plot, the characters’ motivations and, more importantly, their very thought processes. The real facts of Laestadius’ life are nicely woven into the fiction, and the descriptions – at times a veritable assault on the senses – brilliantly evoke the lives of the villagers with all their challenges and privations.  What I liked particularly however is the way in which the novel recreates the mind-set of the era, rather than lazily presenting us with a cast of contemporary characters dressed in fancy historical costume. 

There is another intriguing theme running through the novel. Jussi learns to read and write thanks to the pastor’s efforts. As one new to expressing himself in the written word, Jussi frequently digresses into philosophical musings about writing and books, and has conversations with the pastor about the subject. At one stage there is also a quaint meta-fictional passage where the characters discuss the power of books and, self-referentially, whether a time will come when novels “about murder and death… about the effects of wickedness” will become common.  The pastor feels that books like these could be dangerous.  Jussi begs to disagree.  Surely a novel where “you can follow the devil being fought and in the end being wrestled to the ground” could even serve a moral purpose?

As the mood of the novel gets darker and the violence more explicit, one starts wondering whether To Cook a Bear will manage to conclude in a way which fits Jussi’s template of the “righteous crime novel”.  I won’t be so mean as to reveal the answer to that.   

Kindle Edition

Published September 3rd 2020 by MacLehose Press

(first published September 15th 2017)

Portrait of Laestadius