The story begins when Sig a young boy who lives in the far north of Sweden, finds his father Einar lying frozen to death, on a lake. Sig drags his father to the little shack where they live and not believing his father is dead, tries to warm his body by the fire. Then Sig hears a loud knock at the door and Wolff, a giant of a man struts into the shack and demands, Einar give back the gold he has stolen from him.

I enjoyed the way Marcus Sedgwick puts flashbacks into the story and I think this makes the story exceptionally interesting and gripping because the reader is drawn in as they want to find out about Sig’s past. I also like the way Sedgwick creates suspense by adding a detailed description of how a revolver works.

“Sig stared at Wolff but he didn’t see him.

All he saw were the sights of the colt; the hammer at the rear, cocked and ready to fall on 5the cartridge, and the target sight at the tip of the barrel. It had been years since he had held a gun but it was all still crystal clear in his mind.”

Another example of this:

“Time slowed to a Crawl as Sig had a brief premonition of the future, the very near future. When Wolff moved his forefinger less than a quarter of an inch, the hammer would fall and ignite the primer in the cartridge. The powder would burn, burn so fast as to be an explosion.

I also enjoyed the way Sedgwick gives the reader little bits of information as the story progresses and then at the end these details link together. Though it was a very interesting book most of the time I found some bits boring and the flashbacks became too repetitive as the reader wants to find out what is going to happen to Sig. I also found that at some flashbacks it was not obvious that it had flashed back and so I became confused.

Another great technique used by Sedgwick to keep the reader hooked is his use of cliff-hangers at the end of chapters just before the flashback.

An example of this is:

“Sig collapsed back onto the chair behind him, and stifled the tears that began to burn in his eyes, because he understood that it would not help to cry.

Then there was a knock at the door”

Overall I greatly enjoyed this book but I found it rather too short; despite its length it was definitely a great and worthwhile read.

I rate this book 9/10