The Island by Ragnar Jónasson

The Island: A Thriller by Ragnar Jónasson,  translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb --- 336 pages, including a map.

Book 2 in the Hidden Iceland trilogy featuring Reykjavik Homicide Detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir.

In the fall of 1987 two young students, Katla and Benedikt, take off for a romantic weekend at a summer chalet near Heydalur in the remote Westfjords Peninsula of northwest Iceland. But the consummation of their love ends in tragedy when Katla is murdered and her father Veturlidi is arrested for the crime. Katla's death sets into motion a cascade of events that destroy her family and closest friends.

Ten years later Benedikt cajols those friends --- Alexandra, Klara and Katla's brother Dagur ---  to get together for a reunion at an old hunting lodge on Elliðaey, an uninhabited island off the coast of Iceland southeast of  Reykjavik, a place accessible only by boat, with only radio contact to the outside world. They are supposed to be reconnecting and remembering their friend. But one of them won't be connecting with anyone ever again. For Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavik Police, this case could be the break she needs to get her career back on track before it's too late. But to do that she's going to have to dig into the darkness of the past, a darkness that comes uncomfortably close to home for her.

In this trilogy featuring DI Hulda Hermannsdóttir (Book 1 is The Darkness), Jónasson has chosen to tell Hulda's story backwards. In the first book, Hulda is facing mandatory retirement and the end of the only thing she has left to live for, her work as a detective.  In the second book, we see Hulda at the midpoint in her career, stymied and held back by the misogamy of the time, but still looking for the respect she craves. The final book will show Hulda at the beginning of her career, and the mistakes that would set in motion her struggles.

Jónasson is a brilliant writer of Nordic Noir, combining the bleak atmospherics of the far northern hemisphere, unsettling characters and intricate plots reminiscent of Agatha Christie, and language constructed with the implacable precision of a dry stone hut.

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 Criminal Element.com.

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

Neon Prey by John Sandford

Neon Prey by John Sandford --- 390 pages

The 29th installment in Sandford's Lucas Davenport thriller series shows Sandford hasn't lost his touch.

Sandford, author of 40+ bestselling novels, somehow makes each new novel more thrilling and ingenious than the one before. By mixing and matching elements of crime, mystery and thriller genre(s) in different combinations, he manages to keep you guessing where he's going next. There's no stock formulas or characters in a Sandford novel, and the plots are tightly woven and fast-paced.  In Neon Prey, the story line focuses on two cases involving the same bad, bad dude, over a period of time.

Clayton Deese is stone cold killer. A small-time enforcer for a New Orleans loan shark, Deese takes on what should have been a routine job that goes sideways and ends up getting caught by the cops.  Out on bail awaiting trial, Deese makes his next mistake when he decides to run. Lucas Davenport, now a U.S. Marshal, gets called in when the FBI (looking to build a case against Deese's employer) stumble onto Deese’s secret obsession, which puts him at the top of the Most Wanted list. Lucas and his team (Bob and Rae) are assigned to hunt down the fugitive ASAP.  Deese is trying to negotiate a pay off from the loan shark, who would prefer that Deese disappear forever. Meanwhile  Deese heads to L.A. to hook up with a half-brother and his criminal crew who specialize in home invasions and robberies. But when Deese gets involved, the violence escalates, the other gang members start double-crossing each other,  and soon they're on the run to Vegas, with the Marshals in hot pursuit.

Click HERE to read an interview with Sandford discussing Neon Prey from therealbookspy.com.

 Click HERE to red the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Redemption by David Baldacci

Redemption by David Baldacci, 432 p.

"Detective Amos Decker discovers that a mistake he made as a rookie detective may have led to deadly consequences in the latest Memory Man thriller in David Baldacci's #1 New York Times bestselling series.

Amos Decker and his FBI partner Alex Jamison are visiting his hometown of Burlington, Ohio, when he's approached by an unfamiliar man. But he instantly recognizes the man's name: Meryl Hawkins. He's the first person Decker ever arrested for murder back when he was a young detective. Though a dozen years in prison have left Hawkins unrecognizably aged and terminally ill, one thing hasn't changed: He maintains he never committed the murders. Could it be possible that Decker made a mistake all those years ago? As he starts digging into the old case, Decker finds a startling connection to a new crime that he may be able to prevent, if only he can put the pieces together quickly enough..."

This latest Amos Decker book had a different vibe than previous ones. Amos' series is my favorite Baldacci series, and we got to see a more vulnerable Amos this story. Alex's usual role as "sidekick" is replaced by his old partner, and they make a great team, but I did miss Alex. I know she's not going anywhere, though! Great addition to the Amos Decker series.

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.

Rupture by Ragnar Jónasson

Rupture: An Ari Thor Thriller by Ragnar Jónasson; translated from the Icelandic by Quentin Bates --- 246 pages including Author's Note, Pronunciation Guide, maps, and Acknowledgements. Book 4 in the Dark Iceland Series.

The residents of Siglufjörður are in a panic because a traveler has brought haemorrhagic fever to their small community. The man dies; but then others in the town fall ill. There are more deaths; the town is quarantined and the residents are ordered to stay isolated in their homes for the duration. Local police officer Ari Thor is one of the few people who are allowed to go out; mostly to insure the quarantine is maintained.

Other than that, he has little to do but brood, so when he is contacted by Hedinn, a man with some questions about an old and mysterious family photograph, he welcomes the distraction. 

Meanwhile Isrun, a television reporter in Reykjavik, is looking for a big story that can advance her career. When a young child is kidnapped from his pram, Isrun thinks she's found her story: the boy friend of the child's mother has drawn the attention of the police. Then, in what seems at first like an unrelated incident, a politician's son is killed by a hit and run driver.

What links these two different plot lines is the motive: retribution. In both cases, old betrayals have festered and burst into cold, deliberate acts of revenge.

Jonasson combines intricate plots and evocative language to create an intensity that catches the reader imagination and will not let go. Piece by piece he drops his clues and challenges you to put them together before the final revelation. 

A classic murder mystery with a Nordic Noir twist, and perfect for a cold winter night's  entertainment.  Jonasson is the third of the new Icelandic trilogy of Nordic Noir, along with Arnaldur Indridason and Yrsa Sigurdardóttir.

The Dark Iceland series in order: Snowblind, Nightblind, Blackout, Rupture.

Click HERE to read the review from The Crime Review.com.

Click HERE to read the review from Novel Gossip.com.

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

The Legacy by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

The Legacy: A Thriller by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir; translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb --- 455 pages

Yrsa Sigurdardóttir is the current queen of Icelandic crime fiction, with a number of books to her credit.  The Legacy is the first book in a projected new "Children's House" series that will explore the unlikely partnership of Freyja, a psychologist who works with severely traumatized children, and newly promoted homicide detective Huldar.

Freyja and Huldar must (reluctantly) work together on a particularly horrific series of murders because the only witness they have is a seven-year-old girl who was hiding under the bed in the room when her mother was killed.  Freyja dislikes the police in general and Huldar in particular, but has to cooperate in order to protect little Magrét from the intense pressure of the investigation.

Meanwhile, Karl, a lonely young man living in his deceased mother's house, is getting strange numerically-coded messages on short wave radio that seem to be aimed specifically at him. It takes a long time for Karl to figure out the key to the numbers and decode them, but the cryptic messages that result only frighten and confuse him further.

The only thing that is certain is that the killer, whoever he is, holds a violent grudge against his victims, yet they seem to be chosen at random. If he can only discover what connects the victims, Huldar is certain he could identify the killer. But will he make the connection before the killer strikes again?

Nordic Noir to rival the darkest and most tangled tales of the Icelandic sagas.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publisher's Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the Criminal Element blog.

Click HERE to read the review from theartsdesk.com.

The Fire Pit by Chris Ould

The Fire Pit by Chris Ould --- 461 pages

Faroese detective Hjalti Hentze is initially called out  to deal with an apparent suicide at Muli on the island of Eysturoy, but his case morphs into something far more serious when the skeleton of a woman is discovered half dug up from under a stone walled sheepfold nearby. Hentze finds old records indicating that a Norwegian woman and her young daughter had been  reported missing 40 years ago from a notorious commune at Muli, run by a Danish man, Rasmus Matzen, on land owned by the dead man, Boas Justesen.

Nobody mourns Justesen's death, but some still remember his fascination with the Danish hippies who briefly occupied Muli in the 1970s, so Hentze decides to do some digging into the past, even though the local force is short on manpower and money after recent events (related in a previous book, The Killing Bay).

Meanwhile British homicide investigator Jan Reyna is still looking for answers for his mother’s suicide in 1976. Lydia Reyna had taken Jan and run away from her husband and her life on the Faroes, to Denmark. And there she had committed suicide, leaving four-year-old Jan alone in the flat. Although he has no recollection of what happened, and even though he was rescued and adopted by his mother's sister and her husband in England, it's clear that this early trauma has cast a profound shadow over Jan's life.

These two major subplots of the novel intertwine until the reader realizes that Reyna's personal quest and Hentze's investigation into the past are coalescing into a a single arc of horrific crimes spanning forty years. 

Chris Ould combines the psychological suspense of British thrillers with the spare narrative and atmospheric style of Nordic Noir. Reyna and Hentze are very different  in their approach to investigation, but those very differences make them better and stronger as partners in the search for truth and justice for the victims.

Ould has thoroughly researched the geography and history of the Faroes Islands All the locations, both Danish and Faroese, are vivid and tangible, grounding the novels with an authentic sense of place.  This would make a great series for Masterpiece Mystery.

The three books of the Faroes trilogy --- The Blood Strand, The Killing Bay, and The Fire Pit --- are best read in sequence as the story lines all overlap.  Ould says he is moving on to other projects now but hints that he may return to the Faroes at some future date.  May that time come soon!

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Crimefictionlover.com

Click HERE to read a review from The Crime Review.com

The Killing Bay by Chris Ould

The Killing Bay: A Faroes Novel by Chris Ould --- 461 pages

The Killing Bay is the second book in a trilogy set in the Faroe Islands and picks up just a few weeks after the conclusion of  The Blood Strand, with British detective Jan Reyna recuperating from his injuries., and attending the funeral of his long-estranged father. His mother, who ran away from her husband taking young Jan with her, committed suicide when Jan was a child. He is visiting the islands for the first time --- an outsider attempting to reconnect with his family because he wants to know what really happened between his parents.

There are two main plot lines in this book.  One is Reyna’s search for information about the death of his mother.  He was always told it was a suicide, but has begun to question this.  Even though most people are unwilling to talk, he’s managed to pry loose a few bits and pieces of information that don't quite add up.

While Reyna is looking to the past, another story is unfolding in the present.  Activists have come to the Faroes to protest the traditional whale grind (hunt). Danish security forces descend on the islands. Shortly after a clash between the activists and the locals, one of the activists turns up dead.  Local detective Hjalti Hentze is called to the scene.  At first glance, it looks like the crime is linked to the whale protests. But Hentze is not convinced. The scene looks staged to him.

When a member of his own family becomes a suspect, Hentze is taken off the case.  At every turn it seems the murder investigation is being hindered by the security forces. Then some crucial evidence goes missing. Hentze is convinced that someone is trying to subvert the murder investigation – but why? He asks Reyna to help him find out what's really going on.

Another highly atmospheric police procedural and crime thriller.  Looking forward to the conclusion of the trilogy in The Fire Pit.

Click HERE to read the *review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from The Crime Review.com

Click HERE to read an interview with Chris Ould from Crime Fiction Lover.com

The Blood Strand by Chris Ould

The Blood Strand: A Faroes Novel by Chris Ould --- 435 pages

The first in a trio of crime novels by British author Chris Ould set in the Faroes Islands, an archipelago located about 200 miles north/northwest of Scotland, between Norway and Iceland. The Faroes today are part of Denmark. The population of about 80,000 people speak Faroese, a language descended from Old Norse. The islands are spectacularly scenic, and provide a brooding atmosphere for Ould's tale.

His mother took Jan Reyna away from his home in the Faroe Islands as a very young child, and then committed suicide, leaving Jan to be raised by her sister and her sister's husband in England.  Not surprisingly then Reyna thinks of himself as British, not Faroese. He doesn't speak the language, even though his aunt and uncle speak it.  Now a grown man and a homicide detective, Reyna knows almost nothing about his father, but has many unanswered questions about his mother. When he finally decides to return to the islands Reyna discovers that his estranged father has just suffered a major stroke under suspicious circumstances. He meets the Faroese police inspector investigating the case, Hjalti Hentze, and gradually becomes involved, only to finds himself learning more about his long-lost family’s secrets than he may want to know.

For fans of Nordic Noir and police procedurals, this is the start of a great series.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus.

Click HERE to read the review from blogcritics.org

Nightblind by Ragnar Jonasson

Nightblind: A Thriller by Ragnar Jonasson; translated from the Icelandic by Quentin Bates --- 210 pages including Author's Note.

Book 2 in the Dark Iceland Series. Ari Thór Arason is a policeman in the far northern village of Siglufjordur. Once the village was prosperous, in the days when the locals could make a good living fishing and processing herring. But the herring have long since disappeared from the seas off Siglufjordur. A new tunnel and highway under the looming mountains means the village is no longer cut off from the rest of Iceland (at least, not during the short summer season), so the villagers are hoping summer tourists will revitalize the local economy. Ari Thor is an outsider, shut out of the ties that bind the villagers together, but he cannot help but be aware of the simmering tensions beneath the surface. The villagers like to boast that no one locks their doors in Siglufjordur --- but Ari Thor knows better.

Then the seeming peace is shattered by murder. Ari Thor's boss, Inspector Herjolfur, is lured to a derelict house, ambushed and left to die in pouring rain in the dead of night. Suddenly all Iceland's attention is focused on Siglufjordur. As the arctic winter closes in, Ari Thor pursues a murderer through the maze of local politics, illicit drugs, deep-buried family secrets, and victims driven to kill their tormenters.

Another tour de force from a formidable new talent.

Click HERE to read Jonasson discussing the background of his novels and his family connection to the village of Siglufjordur in an essay published by the Irish Times.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Mystery Tribune.

Click HERE to read the review from The Crime Review.

Snowblind by Ragnar Jonasson

Snowblind: A Thriller by Ragnar Jonasson; translated from the Icelandic by Quetin Bates

Snowblind is the first book in the Dark Iceland series of crime thrillers by a talented new author.   Jonasson, an attorney  and literary enthusiast, writes classic, intricately plotted mysteries with a minimalist Nordic Noir vibe. That's not surprising for a writer who cites Christie (he's translated fourteen of her books into Icelandic) and P.D.James as major influences. Jonasson combines this with firsthand knowledge and family connections to the brooding isolation of rural Iceland in winter. As the snows come howling and the sun disappears for months on end, a small fishing village fallen on hard times becomes a locked room where rookie police officer Ari Thor Arason is trapped along with all his suspects when what seemed an accident morphs relentlessly into murder.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from the UK Independent.