SOURCE: Dunn, Katherine. “In the Gothic Mode.” Washington Post Book World 28, no. 17 (26 April 1998): 4.

In the following review, Dunn explores Høeg's use of historical characters and attention to time as a motif in Tales of the Night.

The Danish writer Peter Høeg made an explosive American debut in 1993 with his suspenseful literary thriller Smilla's Sense of Snow. The title character, Smilla Jasperson, is a remarkable female protagonist whose complex power is revealed in a lush layering of action, dialogue, image and flashback. The book's core gravity is her passionate intelligence as a scientific expert on the subject of ice and snow. The peculiar nature of frozen water is an extended metaphor forming the crystalline structure of the entire book. It is the cause, the effect and the tool that detects the connection. Also ranging through the narrative are mountains of information on a dozen exotic topics—survival...