The Witch Hunter: Secrets In The Snow

Genre: Thriller

Author: Max Seeck

Year Published: 2019

TWs: Violence, Death, Substances, Occult and Supernatural Themes

My Rating: 4/5

During my visit to Helsinki in December, I found myself walking through the streets at night and thought to myself, “Damn, this would be the perfect setting for a thriller novel.”

The nights were longer than the days, with tall buildings standing as silent sentinels. Their sleek glass facades reflected the fading light and every alleyway seemed to hold something sinister. So, when I returned home and discovered a thriller novel set in Helsinki, I couldn’t resist picking it up. If you’re looking to try out a new atmospheric thriller, then this post is for you!

‘Everything else in the room is living in this moment. The blue lights, the wind, Yusuf, and the leafless trees swaying outside. But Maria Koponen is stone-dead’

Synopsis (spoiler-free, always)

Roger Koponen, a wealthy and successful author, enjoys a life of luxury with his stunning, young yet occasionally neglected wife, Maria, in their sprawling mansion. However, when Roger leaves for an event across the country, Maria is murdered. What makes it even more eerie is that it was carried out in a similar manner to a death depicted in Roger’s acclaimed work, ‘The Witch Hunter’s Bible.’

Enter Detective Jessica Niemi, tasked with unravelling this chilling mystery. But the bloodshed doesn’t cease with Maria’s demise. All subsequent victims share eerie similarities: they are young women with black hair, clad in identical black dresses, their nails painted with black polish.

As Jessica delves deeper into the sinister case, a disturbing pattern emerges. The murders appear to be ritualistic, connected to accusations of witchcraft. Jessica soon realises that not only is she pursuing a relentless killer, but she also shares the characteristics of the victims.

Impossible circumstances, Latin phrases and a modern version of the Salem witch trials await you in the gripping thriller, ‘The Witch Hunter’.

The figure looks like her, but everything is backward: emotions, motives, intentions. What flashes past in the mirror is a shell, an expertly fashioned wax doll. It’s you.

My Thoughts

This book is written in an alternating timeline. One timeline is the present following Jessica and the string of witchy murders she is investigating. The second timeline follows a younger Jessica when she is vacationing in Italy and falls in love with an Italian violinist, Colombano. I don’t usually like alternating timelines, so when I saw it I internally groaned but as I kept reading. As the story progressed, the timelines seemed so disconnected that I was genuinely intrigued to see how they would come together.

Secondly, the glimpse of Roger and Maria’s relationship that we get gave me such ‘Gone Girl’ vibes with Maria being the neglected wife and Roger being the cheating husband. I also loved the whole ‘murders following the murders in Roger’s book’ plotline. If my job as a detective was to read books to solve murders, I would take it gladly.

Younger Jessica really annoyed me but her naive nature is a stark contrast to Jessica in the present who is a lot more headstrong and independent. She was not the only detective on the case though there were several others. My favourites were Erne, her boss who was like her father figure and Yusuf, her colleague. It was refreshing to see the author portray the racism both men experienced as an Estonian man and black (his country of origin was not mentioned) man respectively.

Throughout the story, we come across a bunch of characters but not in a way that’s confusing. One of my favourite things about the book was that the chapters were not very long and almost all of them ended in a cliffhanger which kept me hooked but did not help my sleep schedule at all. The last chapter though has left me rethinking everything and I will definitely pick up the second book in this series soon!

If you like the occult, enigmatic characters and plot twists that make you question your own sanity, be sure to pick up this book.

Happy Reading!

About the Author

Max Seeck, born in 1985 in Helsinki, is a writer, film producer, screenwriter, and director. Although he writes in Finnish, his books have been translated into 40 languages in 40 different countries. They mix mystery and Nordic noir with a touch of the supernatural. Max’s writing is personal, drawing from his own life and dreams, and he always envisions his stories as movies. He prefers short, fast-paced chapters.

Some other books by him include: