"A stark, spellbinding crime novel that grips you from its opening pages and refuses to let go."
After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Sergeant Elderick Cole is exiled to Cape Dorset, a tiny Inuit hamlet in Nunavut in the Arctic Circle. Remote, unforgiving, and wrapped in near-permanent darkness. Three years into his posting, Cole is no stranger to isolation, exhaustion, and failure. Crime never seems to sleep here, and neither does he. When the fourth suicide of the year shocks the town - this time a child, Pitseolala - Cole is forced to confront not just the case, but his own haunting question: was there something he could have done differently?
Kempt’s depiction of Cape Dorset is both breathtaking and brutal. Home to just over 1,300 people, the community exists under relentless pressure: extreme weather, overwhelming poverty, substance abuse, lack of resources, and a violent crime rate that ranks among the highest per capita in North America. This is a place where doors freeze shut, where death is familiar, and where hope feels fragile.
The frozen tundra - 2,000 miles from everything Cole once cared about - becomes a character in its own right, smothering the town in silence and shadow.
Cole is a deeply damaged protagonist: doused in failure, fuelled by pain meds, too much coffee and too little sleep. Haunted by past decisions and simmering with rage, frustration, and self-loathing. His bond with the dead girl - who called him Kuukutsi, her pet name for “the white policeman” - pushes the novel beyond conventional crime fiction. Cole begins to experience unsettling visions in which Pitseolala whispers to him, urging him onward. Whether ghost, guilt, or grief-induced hallucination, her presence gives the story an eerie, revenant quality.
Running alongside the investigation is the heartbreaking story of Maliktu, her ten-year-old brother scarred by early trauma, and constant bullying. These children, caught in cycles of violence and neglect, form the moral core of the novel. Cole clings to the belief that if even a few can be pulled from the wreckage of their young lives, the fight is worth it.
The narrative unravels thread by thread, as Cole makes one bad decision after another in his obsessive pursuit of Pitseolala’s killer. The atmosphere recalls the TV series Fortitude - bleak, claustrophobic, and emotionally charged - yet Kempt’s voice is wholly his own.
Described by Lee Child as “hypnotically good – instantly immersive, intense, and ultimately inspiring”, A Gift Before Dying is a powerful read.
| Primary Genre | Crime and Mystery |
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After a botched high-profile murder investigation, Sergeant Elderick Cole is exiled to the remote, rugged landscape of Nunavut, a vast territory in the Arctic Circle known for its untamed beauty, frigid temperatures, and endless winter nights.
His bleak existence takes a sinister turn when he discovers the hanging body of Pitseolala, a troubled Inuit girl whom he had sworn to protect. Her death dredges up demons he thought he'd buried along with the scars of a fractured marriage and the aching divide between himself and his estranged daughter.
As Cole's life unravels - and with it, the fragile thread of his investigation - he turns to Pitseolala's younger brother, Maliktu, a fellow outsider. It's then that Cole uncovers what binds them: a singular mission to find her killer.
Against fierce backlash, Cole's overriding desire to redeem just one aspect of his otherwise failed life becomes an obsession - and he's willing to break every rule in his unyielding pursuit of justice and the smallest shred of redemption.
A Gift Before Dying features in the following genres: Crime / Thriller Pick of the Month, Crime and Mystery, Thriller and Suspense, Crime and mystery: hard-boiled crime, noir fiction
A Gift Before Dying is available in Hardback
A Gift Before Dying was written by Malcolm Kempt and published by Baskerville an imprint of John Murray Press
A Gift Before Dying has 320 pages
£19.80
