The year is 1699. Northern Norway is a land of frozen forests and killing cold, where the mountains swallow men whole and the only law belongs to the strongest. Into this wilderness ventures young Ordener Guldenlew, a nobleman with an impossible mission: to find Hans of Iceland, the most feared murderer in the Nordic world, a savage who roams the wilds accompanied by a white bear and leaves nothing but silence in his wake. Ordener needs what only Hans possesses: secret documents that could restore his beloved Ethel's disgraced father and expose a treasonous conspiracy winding through the kingdom. But finding a man who has already slaughtered every party sent to bring him in demands more than courage. It demands something close to madness. Written when Victor Hugo was just twenty, this is the Gothic historical novel as a young man's fever dream: violent, passionate, and utterly unafraid to let its heart beat wild and fast. Less polished than Les Misérables, perhaps, but rawer. Hungrier. A tale of love, revenge, and survival in a land where the snow never stops falling and death wears a white bear's skin.
