Will Dean - Author
About the Author
Will Dean grew up in the Midlands, living in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. He was a bookish, daydreaming kid who found comfort in stories and nature (and he still does). After studying at the LSE and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden. He built a wooden house in a boggy clearing at the centre of a vast elk forest, and it's from this base that he compulsively reads and writes.
Featured books by Will Dean
Black River
Edgy, gutsy, and so so readable, gosh how I love this series. Black River is the third book after Will Dean’s hugely successful debut Dark Pines and follow up Red Snow. Reporter Tuva Moodyson is back, full of spiky attitude and fortitude, which she will need in bucketfuls after her best friend Tammy goes missing. Tuva just has to be on my list of favourite characters, she yells out to me to join her when I see her book waiting! This is Scandi-noir with a twist, the twist comes with essence of wild and remote and heaps of unusual characters. Will Dean’s descriptions plunged me into Gavrik at Midsommar, adding a somewhat fevered dimension to the plot. The occasional little explanations for those of us who don’t live in Sweden were really helpful. Black River is a dream of a read for me, assured and bold it certainly kept me on my toes, and went straight onto my list for Liz Robinson picks of the month. Read our 'Putting Authors in the Picture' Blog for Will Dean here!
Red Snow
With a sense of menace that fairly snaps at your heels, this is a truly fabulous read. You could step straight into Red Snow quite happily, but I recommend that you begin with the first in the series, Dark Pines. Here, reporter Tuva Moodyson tracks down a killer just as a blizzard hits the small Swedish town of Gavrik. Tuva is absolutely fabulous, she is a fast talking and thinking, no-nonsense lead, and her thoughts stride across the page. The town of Gavrik just has so much atmosphere, it scowls, simmers and plots in the background, actually, not so much in the background, it sits alongside Tuva as a main character. Will Dean writes so beautifully you can feel the black Grimberg liquorice scented energy of the place. In my mind, my thoughts, my feelings, I was there! The dark, twisty and somewhat quirky plot kept me on constant alert from start to finish. Red Snow is edgy, intricate, and right up there for me, this is Scandi-noir with brass knobs on! Read our 'Putting Authors in the Picture' Blog for Will Dean here!
Dark Pines
A fun and gripping first in a new series of Scandi-noir - unusually written by a British writer who grew up here but now lives in Sweden. Our heroine - Tuva Moodyson - has also recently moved there, she grew up in rural Sweden but left for the bright lights of London and has returned to near home because her mother hasn't got long to live. Not wanting to give up her career as a journalist she's moved a few hours away from 'home' to work at a local paper. It's pretty sleepy till the entire community is sent reeling when a body is found in the forest during hunting season, shot but with it's eyes removed, no accident and a chilling copy of a spate of murders from twenty years before. Tuva goes on the hunt for the story of her career almost risking everything to find the killer. Adding to the drama is the fact that Tuva is deaf and her ability to both operate without her hearing aids in complete silence when she wants to, and the danger she faces from her hearing aids failing, both up the ante significantly. Read our 'Putting Authors in the Picture' Blog for Will Dean here!
Other books by Will Dean
First Born
*** From the acclaimed author of THE LAST THING TO BURN comes a new thriller about identity, rivalry and deceit. *** 'Tiptoes into Highsmith territory here. Pacy, exhilarating and jaw-dropping, it's a meditation on identity and loneliness as well as a bloody good pageturner. New York buffets the characters about its ruthless streets, just as the reader is propelled from one twist to the next' ERIN KELLY 'Will Dean writes a mean thriller, with a keen ear for what scares us. The streets of New York shine off the page, and the action rarely lets up. Highly recommended' SARAH HILARY 'Will Dean manages to accomplish the rare blend of excellent writing and intriguing, ingenious plotting' LIZ NUGENT THE LAST THING A TWIN EXPECTS IS TO BE ALONE ... Molly lives a quiet, contained life in London. Naturally risk averse, she gains comfort from security and structure. Every day the same. Her identical twin Katie is her exact opposite: gregarious and spontaneous. They used to be inseparable, until Katie moved to New York a year ago. Molly still speaks to her daily without fail. But when Molly learns that Katie has died suddenly in New York, she is thrown into unfamiliar territory. Katie is part of her DNA. As terrifying as it is, she must go there and find out what happened. As she tracks her twin's last movements, cracks begin to emerge. Nothing is what it seems. And a web of deceit is closing around her. Delivering the same intensity of pace and storytelling that made THE LAST THING TO BURN a word-of-mouth sensation, FIRST BORN will surprise, shock and enthral.
Bad Apples
From the bestselling author of Dark Pines comes Will Dean's most terrifying Tuva Moodyson mystery yet Praise for the series: 'The tension is unrelenting, and I can't wait for Tuva's next outing.' Val McDermid 'Loaded with atmosphere, brilliant on setting, and Tuva Moodyson just rocks.' Mark Billingham 'A must read.' Observer Thriller of the Month 'BRILLIANT.' Ann Cleeves It only takes one... A murder A resident of small-town Visberg is found decapitated A festival A grim celebration in a cultish hilltop community after the apple harvest A race against time As Visberg closes ranks to keep its deadly secrets, there could not be a worse time for Tuva Moodyson to arrive as deputy editor of the local newspaper. Powerful forces are at play and no one dares speak out. But Tuva senses the story of her career, unaware that perhaps she is the story...
Black River
'A peerless exercise in suspense.' Financial Times 'Eerie, unnerving and buckets of fun.' Observer Thriller of the Month 'BRILLIANT central character.' Ann Cleeves, author of the Vera Stanhope novels 'Once again, I LOVED it!!!' Marian Keyes, author of The Break Black River is an electrifying return for relentless reporter Tuva Moodyson, from the author of Dark Pines and Red Snow. FEAR Tuva's been living clean in southern Sweden for four months when she receives horrifying news. Her best friend Tammy Yamnim is missing. SECRETS Racing back to Gavrik at the height of Midsommar, Tuva fears for Tammy's life. Who has taken her, and why? And who is sabotaging the small-town search efforts? LIES Surrounded by dark pine forest, the sinister residents of Snake River are suspicious of outsiders. Unfortunately, they also hold all the answers. On the shortest night of the year, Tuva must fight to save her friend. The only question is who will be there to save Tuva?
The Last Thing to Burn
'Outstanding. The best thriller in years' MARTINA COLE 'One of the best thrillers I have read in years' THE OBSERVER 'I couldn't put it down. A visceral nightmare of a book with one of the most evil villains I've come across in a long time. Powerful writing' STEVE CAVANAGH 'Short, sharp shocker' THE TIMES 'an early contender for one of the best books of the year' S MAGAZINE He is her husband. She is his captive. Her husband calls her Jane. That is not her name. She lives in a small farm cottage, surrounded by vast, open fields. Everywhere she looks, there is space. But she is trapped. No one knows how she got to the UK: no one knows she is there. Visitors rarely come to the farm; if they do, she is never seen. Her husband records her every movement during the day. If he doesn't like what he sees, she is punished. For a long time, escape seemed impossible. But now, something has changed. She has a reason to live and a reason to fight. Now, she is watching him, and waiting . . . 'A true nail-biter' THE GUARDIAN 'Ratchets up the tension to the point where I had to check my pulse' LIZ NUGENT 'Heart-stoppingly suspenseful, a masterclass in tension' ERIN KELLY 'An unbearably tense read, with incredible writing' RAGNAR JONASSON 'I could not stop reading this! Brilliantly done' DENISE MINA 'Sensational. Claustrophobic, compulsive, and almost unbearably tense it's a heart-in-mouth read that's packed with suspense. Readers will be saying 'just one more page' all the way from the gripping beginning to the heart-stopping end' C.L. TAYLOR 'Seriously nail-biting stuff! I raced through it, my heart in my mouth' EMMA CURTIS 'Tremendously powerful and fantastically written, heart-stopping from page one. Expect to see it on all the award lists' SARAH HILARY
Dark Pines: 'The tension is unrelenting, and I can't wait for Tuva's next outing.' - Val McDermid
Selected for ITV's Zoe Ball Book Club and shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker prize A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year 'Will Dean's atmospheric crime thriller marks him out as a talent to watch. Dark Pines is stylish, compelling and as chilling as a Swedish winter.' Fiona Cummins, author of Rattle 'Atmospheric, creepy and tense. Loved the Twin Peaks vibe. Loved Tuva. More please!' C.J. Tudor, author of The Chalk Man For fans of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects and Peter Hoeg's Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, a brand new debut crime writer introduces a Scandi-noir Tuva Moodyson Mystery SEE NO EVIL Eyes missing, two bodies lie deep in the forest near a remote Swedish town. HEAR NO EVIL Tuva Moodyson, a deaf reporter on a small-time local paper, is looking for the story that could make her career. SPEAK NO EVIL A web of secrets. And an unsolved murder from twenty years ago. Can Tuva outwit the killer before she becomes the final victim? She'd like to think so. But first she must face her demons and venture far into the deep, dark woods if she wants to stand any chance of getting the hell out of small-time Gavrik.
It Takes a Tribe
';Who on earth wants to jump into ice baths and run through fire and wallow in mud on a Sunday afternoon, just for the hell of it?' my professors asked. My gut feeling wasplenty of people. Will Dean, founder of extreme obstacle course Tough Mudder, shares the thrilling inside story of how a scrappy startup grew into a movement whose millions of members feel like co-owners. He shows how other companies can embrace the Tough Mudder playbook by nurturing tribes of passionate fans while constantly experimenting with new risks. After five years as a British counterterrorism officer and two years at Harvard Business School, Dean was determined not to follow his classmates to Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Instead, he pursued his unique vision for an extreme obstacle coursea ten- to twelve-mile gauntlet pushing participants to their limits and helping them surpass those limits together. Instead of cutthroat competition, Tough Mudder would be about continual self-improvement and collective energy. It would be about the power of a tribe. Dean and his small team launched the first Tough Mudder event in May 2010, hosting 5,000 pioneers at a deserted ski resort in Pennsylvania. Just seven years later, more than 3 million people on four continents have participated at least once, and hundreds of thousands have done so repeatedly. More than 20,000 are so committed that they sport a Tough Mudder tattoo. Mudders prove the power of fierce and unshakable loyalty to one another and the challenge itself. Proudly sporting orange headbands and team uniforms, they'll run through mud, climb steep walls, face electric shocks, and slide down the side of a mountain. The tougher the experience, the greater the satisfaction. It Takes a Tribe shows you how to embody the Tough Mudder spirit and capture the same magic. As a Tough Mudder slogan says, ';When was the last time you did something for the first time?'
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