The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson

The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson – 309 p.

The Darkness is first in a new series by Scandinavian noir author Jonasson. Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Reykjavik police is forced into early retirement. She wheedles a half-hearted verbal agreement from her boss to investigate one last cold case, one that has haunted her for many years, that of a drowned young Russian woman that no one really cared about. I simply could not dredge up a lot of empathy for put-upon Hulda. The author kept explaining what a strong, capable woman she is, but I felt she was just whiny and unsure of her every move. I also did not care for the way this book sets up the series, which I don't intend to read. Too bad.

The Reckoning by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir

The Reckoning: a Thriller by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir; translated from the icelandic by Victoria Cribb --- 375 paes including Pronunciation Guide; Book 2 in The Children's House Series.

Yrsa Sigurdardottir, winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for best Scandinavian Crime Novel, delivers another mesmerizing crime thriller in her new Children's House Series, which pairs the socially inept Huldar, a detective in the Reykjavík CID with Freyja, a psychologist who treats traumatized children at The Children's House, investigating crimes involving children. 

This partnership is fraught with tensions because  Huldar and Freyja have an awkward personal history that makes it difficult for them to work together at critical moments in the investigation. The story picks up shortly after the conclusion of the first book in the series, The Legacy. Reading the books in order isn't necessary to understand the plot, but is necessary to fully grasp the relationship between Huldar and Freyja.

Ten years ago a local school had a time capsule project, and the students all wrote letters predicting the future and put them into the capsule.  Now the school has dug up the capsule, and one of the  letters predicts six people will die. The problem is, the letter is unsigned, and the six people are listed only by initials. 

It's probably just some kind of adolescent prank, but Huldar is assigned to evaluate the potential threat. Huldar suspects he's been given the job just to keep him busy so he can't screw up another major case like he did the last one. But it's an excuse to call Freyja, and try again to ingratiate himself with her. 

However the case takes a sudden dark turn when a series of horrifying events culminate in the savage murder of a retired prosecutor whose initials match one set of initials in the time capsule note. And this is just the start of a series of attacks that seem to be triggered by the release from prison of a paedophile who raped and murdered a young girl from that same school twelve years ago.

Huldar and Freyja realize they only have a short time to discover what links all of these events together in order to find the killers and stop them.

This is an expertly plotted and paced psychological thriller, and a furious indictment of any society that tolerates those who use their privilege and power to abuse the innocent. 

Click HERE to read the * review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Crime by the Book blog.

The Darkness by Ragnar Jonasson

The Darkness: A Thriller by Ragnar Jónasson; translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb --- 310 pages

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.

Reykjavik Nights by Arnaldur Indridason

Reykjavik Nights: An Inspector Erlendur Novel by Arnaldur Indridason; translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb --- 294 pages

The ninth Inspector Erlendur novel is a prequel, going back in time to 1974 to show us the young Erlendur at the start of his career, assigned to the Traffic Division of the Reykjavik police, working the night shift, dealing with car crashes, robberies, fights, drunks drug addicts and the occasional unnatural death, while respectable citizens are sleeping.

Erlendur is already displaying his stoic, almost anti-social nature, and his talent for dogged, persistent investigation.

On one of the long Northern nights, a homeless drunk Erlendur has encountered on the streets turns up drowned in a waste pond. No one is particularly surprised by Hannibal's death. A respectable married woman named Oddny, walking home from a night out with friends, disappeared the same night. She was trapped in an unhappy marriage; the police suspect suicide, but the case will remain officially open until they find the body.

Only Erlendur, obsessed by the need to discover the truth about those who have lost their way, is driven to pursue his own investigations.

Arnaldur Indridason is a historian, former journalist and film critic, and internationally acclaimed author of the "Nordic Noir" Inspector Erlendur series set in Iceland.

Click HERE to read an interview with author Arnaldur Indridason.

Click HERE to read the review in the New York Times.

Click HERE to read a review from the Crime Fiction Lover web site.  

Black Skies by Arnaldur Indridason

Black Skies: An Inspector Erlendur Novel by Arnaldur Indridason; translated from the Iclandic by Victoria Cribb --- 330 pages

To oblige an old school friend, Detective Sigurdur Oli agrees to make an "unofficial" visit to dissuade a blackmailer who is trying to extort money with sexually explicit photographs. But when Oli arrives on the blackmailer's doorstep he finds her critically injured and surprises her assailant, who runs from the scene.

Oli's investigation is further complicated by his own feelings of bitterness and resentment, as his personal life is falling apart and his career seems to have hit a dead end, while so many of his contemporaries are rocketing to success in the wild financial boom Iceland is experiencing. When the victim dies in hospital, Sigurdur Oli is faced with investigating the murder without revealing his own reasons for being present at the murder scene.

This is the ninth entry in the Inspector Erlendur series; interestingly, it is written in parallel to the eighth novel, Outrage, in which Erlendur is also absent under increasingly mysterious circumstances. In these two novels, Erledur's two subordinates, Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli, are working on their own, without Erlendur's guidance. Elinborg must learn to trust her instincts and assert herself; Sigurdur Oli must learn question his assumptions and take responsibility for his mistakes.

Moving between the brazen greed of Reykjavik's nouveau riche and the self-destructive dispair of lives lost to poverty, drugs and squalor, Black Skies is another gripping story from Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger winner, Arnaldur Indridason.