Detectives in the Dock: Gil Reavill and Sarah Hollister's character Veronika Brand from This Land is No Stranger

It is with great delight that I welcome NYC cop Veronika Brand onto The Crime Warp's Detectives In The Dock, today courtesy of Gil Reavill, one half of the Hollister/Reavill duo who wrote This Land Is No Stranger

Available here

Here's a bit about This Land Is No Stranger

With a spin on traditional Nordic noir and Scanoir genres, this murder mystery thriller
follows female protagonist and disgraced NYC cop Veronika Brand as she escapes her homegrown problems only to find herself in unfamiliar territory in the home of her ancestors, Sweden.

Detectives In The Dock

Tell us a little about Veronika Brand’s background.

Brand teeters forever on the edge of the abyss, a woman approaching 40, a disgraced NYPD detective, a stranger in a strange land—a stranger to herself who for the first time is visiting Sweden, the land of her ancestors.

The Fields of Wheat moment… What is the most rebellious thing your character has ever done? 

A woman aspiring to be a murder cop is always an act of rebellion against straightjacket social norms, but Brand pushes it further, rebelling against the bro culture within the NYPD, jacking herself up on prescription speed, generally adopting a prickly “screw you” attitude toward the world. Her ultimate rebellion, running up against a pair of powerfully connected fellow detectives, gets her kicked to the curb, shattering her career as a police.

Which 3 items would Veronika bring to a desert island … and why?

Her duty pistol, a Glock 17, plus two copper-jacketed 9mm cartridges. In case she misses her cranium the first time.

 The Nitty Gritty: The Big Reveal  

What does Veronika fear most?

Water. Specifically, black, flowing currents of uncertain depth. As a kid Brand loved swimming, was a star on school swim teams in Queens, her home borough, but an aborted East River suicide attempt bred in her a severe case of potamophobia.

 What is Veronika's worst nightmare?

When Brand hits Sweden, a whole set of new nightmares get unleashed upon her, the demons of Swedish folk mythology, including the aptly named nattmara, a shape-shifting horror most often found perched upon the chests of sleeping victims, robbing them of breath, inhabiting their night terrors, convincing them of the futility of their lives and pushing them toward suicide

What turns Veronika on?

Brand used to be able to get turned on by a stiff breeze. Alas, life has knocked her libido to the mat, with the ref pronouncing the ten-count over it. Sweden has a rep for free-wheeling sexuality, so maybe she’ll find joy within the pages of This Land Is No Stranger.

 In five words describe…

 What Veronika's mum thinks of her.

 Her mum is a drunk. Not much “thinking” there.

 What her enemies think of her.

 A sample from Brand’s NYPD performance reviews: “arrogant, not a people person.”

What is Veronika's favourite:                             

Colour:                 Black

Authors:                Sarah Hollister and Gil Reavill

Weapon:                Her mind

Country:                New York City

Beatle:                   Pete Best

 

This Land Is No Stranger Blurb

With a career that is spiraling out of control and a nasty drug habit that has taken her to rock bottom, NYC detective Veronika Brand is looking for a way out. When a call from Sweden interrupts her personal chaos, the foreign tongue of her distant Swedish relatives pulls her across the Atlantic with the lure of adventure and escape. But what she finds is far from the idyllic picture her grandmother painted. Instead of long languid summers basking in the midnight sun, she unearths secrets long since buried in the frozen ground.

In Krister Hammar, a local Sami land rights lawyer, she thinks she has found a kindred spirit. But when they stumble upon a brutal murder scene in a manor house owned by the rivals of her family, she starts questioning his truth. She finds herself being moved like a chess piece between the desolate region of Härjedalen in the north and the steely-cold streets of Stockholm, scrambling to find the links between her family history, a trail of missing Roma girls, and a series of vicious murders. In unfamiliar territory on the wrong side of the law, Veronika has her sights set only on the beast that preys on the wicked. Will she be able to see past the lure of the northern lights to the dark secrets that threaten to destroy her?

Author Bios

Sarah Hollister is an American writer and playwright, living the Scandinavian reality on one of the 24,000 islands in the Swedish archipelago near Stockholm. Her plays Sisters’ Dance and Relative Truth have been produced in New York City, and she is a member of the Dramatikerförbund (Sweden’s drama guild), which awarded her residences at the Henning Mankell House in northern Sweden. She is a founding member of the Stockholm Writers Festival. A New York-based screenwriter and journalist, Gil Reavill often writes about crime, both in fiction, with the “13” series of thrillers (13 Hollywood Apes, 13 Stolen Girls, 13 Under the Wire) and non-fiction, with Mafia Summit and Aftermath, Inc. Reavill also co-wrote the screenplay for the corrupt-cop feature film, Dirty, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr.