Alek

In this final book in the quartet, Alek (formerly Doup) embarks on a journey with plenty of intrigue, including a shipwreck, a murder, and an exotic girl who survives the wreck. Even fans will have trouble keeping the expanding "family" straight, but it hardly matters when the imagery is so precise and eloquent that each line of text reads like poetry.

The final character to get star billing in Bredsdorff's gorgeously written quartet of novels about the community at Crow Cove has long been called Doup; but as the embers flicker and die on the last night of the year he asks his father, Frid, to tell him his real name. Thus, young Alek sheds his babyish nickname and, like the main characters in Eidi (rev. 11/09) and Tink (rev. 5/11) before him, embarks on his own coming-of-age journey. He goes to visit his older brother Ravnar, a fisherman who moved to another village after a failed romance, and stays longer than planned to watch over his lovesick sibling. The Crow Cove "family" -- a commune, really -- has expanded in this concluding volume to the point where even loyal fans will have trouble keeping all the characters straight. But it hardly matters when Bredsdorff's imagery is so precise and eloquent that each line of text reads like poetry. Whether she's describing the onset of night on the rugged Danish coast ("The wind had subsided, and the sky was gray and heavy and pulled the light out of the world and made the rocks slippery") or a domestic task (such as the preparation of a roast that "smelled sweetly of blood and spicy from pepper and juniper berries"), her language pulls readers into the scene. The story has plenty of intrigue, including a shipwreck, a murder, and an exotic girl who survives the wreck and, per Alek's coaxing, takes shelter in Ravnar's cabin. But it's the quieter moments that truly shimmer, shedding light on the inevitable harshness and stark beauty of life. christine m. heppermann