A gripping new thriller by the author of the celebrated "Dark Iceland" series. This is the first volume in a new trilogy called "Hidden Iceland," and Jónasson is upping the ante by choosing to write the three volumes in reverse chronological order.
The body of a young woman, a Russian asylum-seeker, is discovered by hikers washed up in an isolated little cove, halfway between Reykjavik and Keflavik. After a cursory investigation by the Reykjavik police, the death is declared a suicide, and the case closed.
Over a year later Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police has just learned that she is being forced into early retirement at 64, to make room for a new hire, a much younger and less experienced man. Hulda is furious; she has been dreading compulsory retirement at age sixty-five, and now she is being forced out a year sooner. But before she leaves she bargains with her boss for two more weeks to clear her desk and a chance to solve a one last cold case of her choosing. Hulda knows which case: the Russian woman whose hope for asylum ended in the icy waters. Soon Hulda discovers that another Russian emigre vanished at about the same time, and that no one seems concerned or even interested. Even the other detectives in her division seem more determined to discourage and obstruct her efforts to reopen the investigation. Meanwhile the clock is ticking.
It's rare to find a woman in her sixties featured as the protagonist in a suspense thriller. Perhaps Jónasson is being influenced by his background as the person who translated a number of Agatha Christie's classic mysteries into Icelandic. But his Hulda is not an Icelandic Miss Marple. Readers will find themselves rooting for Hulda as she battles the latent hostility and dismissive attitudes she has had to overcome as a woman in a male-dominated field.
As in Jónasson's other books, the Icelandic landscape is an ever present "character" lurking throughout The Darkness. Readers will experience both Iceland's compelling beauty and its unforgiving nature.
In the "Nordic Noir" tradition, the plotting is precise, winding tighter and tighter as the suspense rachets up to a bleakly ironic conclusion. Only when looking backward can the reader see the tragic inevitability of a web so expertly woven to deceive.
Click HERE to read an interview with the author from the Reykjavik Grapevine.
Click HERE to read the *review from Publishers Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.
Click HERE to read the review from the Washington (DC) Times.
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