To the Faroes this week, a remote group of islands in the North Atlantic, for Chris Ould’s The Killing Bay. The title is a reference to the regular whale hunts, that involve boats driving whales into a bay where the local inhabitants then kill them. After one such hunt, one of a group of international protesters is found dead. One of the last people to see her alive was Jan Reyna, a British policeman of Faroese extraction, who has returned for the funeral of his father.

Jan teams up with the local police, including Hjalti Hentze, and it quickly becomes apparent that this is not a straightforward murder, but that there are a number of vested interests, not least within the police force itself.

This is an atmospheric look at a little-known area of the world, and the difficulties of policing a series of islands linked by ferry, plane and tunnel. Everything takes time, and all the characters seem isolated. Oulds is also a screenwriter, so the story is well-structured, despite an initially complex series of shifting scenes. It is the second of an intended trilogy, and I will be looking out for the next instalment.