The Inuit, Mo Malø’s great Greenlandic thriller.
Two murders are committed in a remote village in Greenland that can only be reached by helicopter or dog-drawn sled. One person was on the scene each time: Paninguaq Madsen, known as the Inuit, who travels the country helping women give birth far from any decent hospital structure. She has the distinction of wearing the traditional Inuit sewn-on tattoo on her face, the “walrus beard” that distinguishes some of the country’s rarest women.
Who is she really? A native devoted to her people, working against the negligence of the Danish authorities? Or a wounded woman dangerously seeking revenge?
While the Inuit woman is on the run, two investigators become embroiled in the story: a local cop, more burlesque than effective, but who knows the habits and customs of the great frozen continent; and a Danish police expert in charge of a cold case involving his country’s highest authorities. In the 1950s, 22 Inuit children aged 5 to 8 were taken from their families and re-educated to become the country’s Danish-speaking elite. Only 16 returned home, only to be locked up in an orphanage and have their lives shattered.
Is there a link between the Inuit and her country’s betrayed memory?
