Ragnar Jonasson hailed as one of "the heirs to the Agatha Christie crown" by The Daily Telegraph (UK). New York Times Book Review The Island will satisfy your desire to think, feel, and shudder to its logical and somewhat surprising resolution." —New York Journal of Books Publishers Weekly (starred review)Kirkus Reviews Dayton Daily News The Island was short-listed for Crime Novel of the Year Award in Iceland. Read it, and you will see why." BookPage (Top Pick for June)Franklin Lifestyle “Dark, chilling and utterly gripping, The Island is Nordic noir at its best, and is destined to become a classic of the genre. I couldn’t put it down. I can’t wait to read the rest of the Hulda series!” —Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of An Unwanted Guest The Island is his best book yet, an unflinching thriller that braids past and present, good and evil, love and loss. I can't wait for Hulda Hermannsdóttir's next case.” —A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window The Darkness :Publishers Weekly (starred review and book of the week)The Darkness melds an insightful character study with a solid plot for an outstanding novel." —Washington Post Booklist (starred review)Library Journal Kirkus Reviews The Darkness is a bullet train of a novel, at once blazingly contemporary and Agatha-Christie old-fashioned. With prose as pure and crisp as Reykjavik snowcrust, Ragnar Jónasson navigates the treacherous narrative with a veteran’s hand. I reached the end with adrenalized anticipation, the final twist hitting me in the face. I dare you not to be shocked." —Gregg Hurwitz, New York Times bestselling authorThe Darkness . In all honesty, I might even be loving this new series more than I loved the launch of Ragnar's Dark Iceland series, Snowblind— and that's saying a lot .... If you love atmospheric, slow-burning yet totally addictive police procedurals, you have to add this book to your TBR. The Darkness is downright fantastic." —Crime by the Book blog
Consider this one of [Jonasson's] best plots, layered with that dour Scandinavian atmosphere we love.
The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio
★ 03/25/2019
Jónasson’s masterly sequel to 2018’s The Darkness opens with a cryptic prologue set in a town just south of Reykjavík in 1988. A seven-year-old girl puzzles her parents after they return home one night by saying that both of her babysitters were kind, though only one babysitter had been with her. Flash back to a year earlier, when an unnamed 20-year-old woman takes her boyfriend, Benedikt, to her family’s summer home on the island of Ellidaey down the coast from Reykjavík, where she tells him stories about Iceland’s history of witch-burning in the 17th century. That outing ends in murder, and corruption mars the subsequent police inquiry. A decade later, Insp. Hulda Hermannsdóttir, who was passed over for promotion at the time of that flawed investigation, takes charge when another dead body turns up on Ellidaey with a connection to the previous murder. The link between the babysitter’s mysterious companion and the murders gradually becomes clear as the plot builds to a shiver-inducing conclusion. Jónasson delivers a mind-bending look into human darkness that earns its twists. Agent: David Headley, DHH Literary (U.K.). (May)
2019-03-18The Darkness (2018) that picks up Inspector Hulda Hermansdóttir in 1997, 15 years before her unplanned retirement, and finds her already just as lonely, resentful, and driven to succeed against all odds.
Ten years after the death of Katla, a young woman who was murdered on Ellidaey Island, an uninhabited scrap of rock off the remote southwest coast of Iceland, four friends of hers return to the island. It's not entirely clear why securities trader Dagur, farmer's daughter Alexandra, or perennially unemployed Klara, who mostly aren't close to each other, have accepted the invitation of software company founder Benedikt to the scene of Katla's murder. But it's soon very clear that the reunion was a seriously bad idea. When one of the four not-quite-friends ends up at the bottom of a cliff, the others make appropriately mournful sounds. But the discovery of marks on the victim's throat indicates that this new death is another murder and raises the uncomfortable question of which of the three survivors—there's literally no one else on the island—is the killer. Hulda, who's been off in America seeking her birth father from among a short list of GIs named Robert who could possibly have impregnated her mother during a tour of duty in Reykjavik, returns in time to grab the case from under the nose of Lýdur, the former professional rival who's now her boss after having risen swiftly through the ranks, his rise propelled in no small part by his work 10 years ago in identifying Katla's killer, who suddenly doesn't look so guilty after all.
Jónasson, who could give lessons on how to sustain a chilly atmosphere, sprinkles just enough hints of ghostly agents to make you wonder if he's going to fall back on a paranormal resolution to the mystery. Don't worry: The solution is both uncanny and all-too-human.
