A Long Dark Night is the second novel by Lilli Sutton, and it follows her debut stand alone that was of a similar mold – a harsh story of survival with themes of family, resilience, and ambition. Nina’s story, however, is also a murder mystery. Coming home when the corona virus shuts down the world, Nina is estranged from her parents and siblings and has been running her own restaurant. Her family lives in isolated Whitespur, Alaska, and has limited access to any form of technology, especially cell service. Before, her mother wrote her letters, but Nina eventually stopped answering them. Her mother never acknowledged her success.
Though Whitespur is small, freezing, and disconnected from the rest of the world in many ways, it has been spared the pandemic. Nina hopes to ride out the storm in her childhood home. She does not, however, find a family eager for her return. Her father, a renowned dogsled musher, has been injured and pretty much shut down. Her mother is gruff, and barely speaks to her or her younger brother Grant. Older sister Audrey moved out and became addicted to drugs and alcohol. Grant himself is working at the local oilfield.
The oilfield is contentious to say the least. Though it provides much needed jobs and good pay, it is destroying the beautiful natural environment they all love. Nina never would have thought Grant would work for such a company, but she didn’t know how dire things had gotten. With no tourists coming in, the dogsled tour business that has always kept her family afloat is no longer pulling in money. It left Nina’s family with a lot of mouths to feed, and little way to do it without Grant’s money. Though Nina is happy to reconnect with the dogs, and with some of her old friends, she’s quickly bored and as isolated as Whitespur itself.
Unfortunately for her, things don’t stay quiet for long. An explosion at the oilfield leaves Grant a witness to a death – and one that is swiftly and terrifyingly covered up by a supervisor at the site. The men who drive the body out into the wilderness with Grant threaten him into silence. He knows they will make good on these threats. And he suspects that the efficiency with which they disposed of the body means that this isn’t their first time – especially given there are other missing men in the area. Grant tells Nina, who wants to tell the police. He won’t relent and do it himself, too scared of the repercussions. But how long can Nina resist her morals and keep her brother’s secret?
A Long Dark Night is a slow build, but not at all in a bad way. Often, the book makes the reader feel like they’re in snowy Whitespur themselves, fighting for survival alongside the characters. Nina, the main narrator but not the only one, feels lived in and very real. She left a full, interesting life before the pandemic and it’s fascinating to watch her readapt. This is a dark story, however. Nina’s family are often unpleasant and stand offish, her sister’s addiction isn’t shied away from, and there are no clean-cut fixes to the family’s problems. It is, however, a story worth reading for anyone choosing to brave it. — Margaret Agnew