The Sixteen Trees of the Somme – Lars Mytting

The narrator, Edvard Hirifjell, lives with his grandfather Sverre on an isolated farm in rural Norway.  There are reasons beyond geographic for their isolation.

Edvard’s parents died while holidaying in France when he was just three, the circumstances unusual if not mysterious, particularly as he was with them, survived, and was found days later many miles away.  His grandfather, tarred by his eastern front service in the Nazi-supporting Norwegian Legion, is largely shunned by the local community so it no surprise Edvard is a bit of a loner.

When Sverre dies (no spoiler - it happens early in the book) Edvard gains access to photos and documents that rekindle his curiosity over his family tragedy.  Now totally alone he starts asking other people questions that his grandfather had previously fended off.  What was his mother (‘a French drifter’ according to his grandmother) doing in rural Norway in 1965 before she had met his father?  Why did  Sverre’s brother Einar, a skilled cabinet maker, leave Norway for good in 1939; if he was, as reported, executed by the Germans in 1944, then who has made and sent the distinctive coffin for Sverre’s burial?

That item has come from Shetland and Edvard resolves to travel there and pick up the trail of his family history, leaving the farm in the hands of old flame Hanne.  She fails to appreciate his new obsession but agrees to mind the shop in his absence.

In Shetland revelations abound.  Einar’s trail is picked up; a young Scottish heiress is encountered who has an agenda of her own that may coincide or conflict with his; more documents are unearthed; false identities and hidden truths emerge; and all point to a certain sixteen trees that grew in the Somme in 1914.

The book is multi-layered and intricately plotted with atmospheric descriptions of wild and starkly beautiful locations.  Edvard’s journey is both physical and emotional, almost bringing to mind that of Pip in Dickens’ Great Expectations (there are even echoes of Satis House and Estella).

The outcome is uncertain to the last but what is not in doubt is the lasting good impression of an epic tale that drags in history, mystery and even a little carpentry.