An Icelandic Mystery

It's supposed to be a relaxing New Age health resort on the west coast of Iceland, but Jonas Juliusson, the new owner, thinks it's haunted. So he calls in his lawyer, Thora Gudmundsdottir, to come investigate. But Thora's investigation quickly takes a dark turn when the young architect working at the resort is murdered on the beach and found naked, beaten, and with pins stuck in the souls of her feet. Now Jonas is one of the prime suspects. Thora, along with her German boyfriend, Matthew Reich, must act quickly to find out who the real murderer is before it's too late.

My Soul To Take by Yrsa Sigurdardottir is Nordic crime fiction at its best. There's something haunting about it. Sigurdardottir expertly weaves Iceland's unique culture and history into a deliciously compelling mystery. And Thora and Matthew are great characters; they also appear in Sigurdardottir's first novel, Last Rituals, which is a much darker and more disturbing mystery. I liked this novel better. It's fun and fast-paced and will keep you guessing until the very end.

Happy Reading!

Also by Yrsa Sigurdardottir: The Day is Dark

The Day is Dark

Yrsa Sigurdardottir has written several thrillers, but this is the first one I've read. I picked it mostly because of the setting--it takes place at an arctic mining camp on the Eastern coast of Greenland. It's isolated, forbidding, and according to the locals, cursed. Three workers from the camp have disappeared and Thora Gudmundsdotter, an Icelandic lawyer, and her boyfriend, Matthew Reich, an employee of the bank underwriting the mining company, have been sent to this hostile landscape to investigate. What they find surprises even them.

The back of the book calls this mystery "chilling, unsettling, and compulsively readable", and I couldn't agree more. You don't know if the people at the camp went crazy, or if the harsh climate was responsible, or the locals, or the spirits of the dead ... but you don't want to stop reading until you find out. And even though Thora is a recurring character, it didn't seem to matter that I hadn't read any of her previous novels. This novel stands alone just fine. I thought it was a great read--an intense Nordic crime novel without being too dark or too gritty. I can't wait to try this author again.

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

     The Whisperer by Donato Carrisi

     Where Monsters Dwell by Jorgen Brekke