
WITH the nightmarish killing sprees of the previous Christmas and New Year now behind her, Police Commissioner Petra ‘Piitalaat’ Jensen is looking forward to spending this festive season unwinding quietly at home in Nuuk.
In the year 2043 Petra’s Greenland is finally independent of Denmark thanks to the successful referendum of almost 12 months earlier and starting to make its own way in the world. Nuuk is a peaceful, well-balanced, multicultural city with its distinct Dutch, Chinese and US quarters living in harmony to forge a prosperous and progressive future for the country.
There’s cause for much celebration for members of the Greenlandic police in particular, operating for the first time as a fully self-determining force answerable to no-one beyond its own borders.
Petra’s assistant Aron is recovering from injuries suffered in the course of intercepting a former colleague bent on disrupting Greenland’s self-government vote and Petra is once more contemplating the possibility of taking early retirement. Since the death of her long-time partner Constable David Maratse she hasn’t had her usual passion for enforcing the law. A low-key December is exactly what she needs as she weighs up her options.
Someone has other plans, however. Someone – it will be up to Petra’s officers to discover who – sees Advent not as a time of preparation, anticipation and relaxation but as an opportunity to settle old scores.
As the long dark nights envelop Nuuk, suddenly the run-up to Christmas starts to seem eerily familiar for Petra and her team.
Invisible Touch is the third in Christoffer Petersen’s series of Dark Advent literary ‘calendars’: stories written in distinct parts designed to be enjoyed one chapter at a time over in this case the first 24 days of December, allowing the reader to experience the action as it unfolds in Nuuk in real time.