Review: Night Shadows, by Eva Björg AEgisdóttir, Translated by Victoria Cribb

The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a
mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from
West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an
increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the
dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating
not one murder, but two.

A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to.

As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to
come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide…

My Review

Thanks to Anne Cater for arranging this tour and to Karen at Orenda for sending me a copy of this novel.

I have the first two books in this series and was really excited when I received the email about this tour. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Having a quiet Saturday afternoon to fill, I picked up Night Shadows and started reading.

The first line is such a strong hook. I was immediately drawn in. Who was dead, who needed help moving the body? What was going on in Akranes? I couldn’t put this book down. Ezzie and Gyfa were most annoyed by my inattention to their back scratching needs.

The plot is deceptively complex. It seems so simple, it must be (no spoilers) but then, it can’t be! Why did Marinos die? Why was there a fire? I was certain his sister was responsible, but nope. Some of the characters aren’t who you think they are and there’s a lot of misdirection. The police eventually focus on one person, but as always in Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir’s novels, the obvious suspect is a bit of a red herring.

Meanwhile, Elma makes a life changing discovery and has to deal with it, which complicates her working and personal relationships. Meanwhile, her boss is struggling with his grief and the imminent birth of his daughter’s first child. No one on the case is focused as much as they should be.

I had my heart in my mouth at the end, and kept me gripped to the final page.

I enjoy the complex plots and and characters in the Forbidden Iceland series, and the relationships explored in the individual books, and the continuing relationships that go through all three books. Familial relationships are important in all the novels but in this one especially the relationships between parents and children, with a focus on the obsessiveness that can happen when the parents are co-dependent. There is also some explorations of the difficulties of raising girls in an image obsessed culture and the pressure put on children who show an aptitude in sports. Laufey is a really interesting character in this respect.

I have to recommend, not just this book, but the entire series.

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THE AUTHOR

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study my
MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. After moving back home having
completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel.
Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a
short story contest in Iceland.
Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first
novel, The Creak on the Stairs. The book went on to win the CWA Debut
Dagger, the Blackbird Award, was shortlisted (twice) for the Capital Crime
Readers’ Awards, and became a number one bestseller in Iceland. The
critically acclaimed Girls Who Lie (book two in the Forbidden Iceland
series) soon followed, with Night Shadows (book three) following suit in
July 2022. Eva lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík.