PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £9.99 | ORENDA BOOKS
Dark secrets from the past threaten everything …
Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.
At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until a chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?
Once again, the team at West Iceland CID has to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light.
And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.
My Review
Thanks to Anne for organising this tour, and to the team at Orenda Books for sending me a copy of this novel. I appreciate it when a publisher is able to accommodate my disabilities, and feed my book habit, because we all know I have a problem.
Elma and Saevar are settling into life as parents. They’ve swapped work and baby responsibilities now that Adda is old enough to not need breastfeeding every couple of hours. On Elma’s first day back at work, a neighbour calls to say she hasn’t heard from her son and can they go up to the summer cabin and see if he’s there.
Of course he is. And he’s dead. Very dead, in fact. Probably four days dear. And it was brutal. When a line from a hymn is found scrawled in marker pen, written over the man’s blood, Elma realised religion might be involved. The man has a couple of friends and a new girlfriend. His mother is eccentric. Local gossip suggests his father was abusive, but he died, drunkenly falling into a lake in 1994. Things get really weird when a old blood stain is found in the cabins living room and an old knife is found under the porch. What has happened here? And is it related to this new murder?
Saevar finds a diary, from a boy who lived in their house decades ago. The diary covers a week in August 1995 when the boy and his friends go to a Christian summer camp. A summer camp at which one of the boys mentioned in the diary dies. The lasted murder victim is also mentioned, as are his friends, now a couple.
Saevar and Elma discuss their individual investigations and realise they’re probably linked. When they discover the murder victim’s girlfriend is the sister of the boy who wrote the diary, they’re convinced she’s the murderer, but she’s disappeared.
Then someone else involved in the camp death is murdered and more writing is found at the scene. Clearly, this is all connected, but how? And how to convince the boss?
Ahh, I’ve been waiting for this next instalment in Elma’s story, and I couldn’t have been better rewarded for my patience. I enjoyed the misdirection, Aegisdottir is amazing at them and this was a blinder. I did not expect the murderer to be who they were, or the secrets that were exposed. And now I’m worried for Saevar and Elma. Otto is a bastard! I hope he goes down for corruption! I need the next book!
I really enjoyed the twisty plot. I read most of it in an evening, but then got overwhelmed and had to stop. So, since I woke up early the next day, I finished reading the book over breakfast. There’s so many secrets! And the ending! What am I supposed to do with this information? I need there to be a resolution! Twisty plots, strange characters, secrets and lies! It’s so satisfying to read!
This is a story of small town secrets, small town corruption, and a massive ego. And it isn’t even the ego you think it is. I thought Disa might be the murderer, her ego’s big enough, and she did have that one-way ticket to Spain…but nope, oh, well, she is a murderer, but not the murderer, if that makes sense.
This is also a story of abuse. The abuse of children by parents, the abuse of children by other children, the abuse of power by a person who should know better. The fall-out from a bullying incident, which was the result of abused children becoming bullies and victims, hidden by those who should have done something about the abuse, but didn’t, ripples through the decades, until multiple murders and attempted murders leave a stain on Akranes.
I found the descriptions of Iceland quite evocative, I really must visit one day. If it wasn’t so expensive! And I could drive. Everyone seems to drive in Iceland. I really want to see the mid-Atlantic Ridge. I will not be swimming in the sea though. I’m not cold swimming trained. And the North Atlantic is freezing! Disa’s arrogance is shown by her willingness to swim, alone, at night, in the sea. Without even a tow-float! This is stupid, don’t do it. You might not die, but hypothermia is a real possibility.
The development of Elma’s relationship with her family has been a strong thread through the series so far, and it continues, although changed now that she’s been home three years, has a partner and baby, and is one of the joys of the books. Her relationship with Saevar is fairly strong, and they work well as a parenting team, but I’m concerned it might not survive the blow it received at the end of the novel. That’s a cliff-hanger and a half! Watching their boss, Horthur, deal with his grief, and then an injury from cycling on ice, his stubborn resistance to getting help, and finally his acceptance that he needs it, is engaging and how many stubborn older men do you know who don’t react like that? I found his struggle to set up a Facebook profile so he could make contact with other older people who had lost a spouse quite endearing. He’s learning to process his grief and ask for help, at last.
Seriously, if you haven’t read these books yet, and you like crime fiction, read them. If you have read the other books in the series, you need to read this one now!
ABOUT EVA BJÖRG ÆGISDÓTTIR
Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir studied for an MSc in globalisation in Norway before returning to Iceland to write her first novel. Her debut thriller The Creak on the Stairs, was published in 2018, and won the Blackbird Award in Iceland. Published in English by Orenda Books in 2020, it became a digital number-one bestseller worldwide, was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Awards in two categories and won the CWA John Creasey Dagger in 2021. Girls Who Lie, the second book in the Forbidden Iceland series was shortlisted for the Petrona Award and the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger, and Night Shadows followed suit. In 2024, she won the Blood Drop Award for Crime Book of the Year in Iceland. With over 260,000 copies sold in English alone, Eva has become one of Iceland’s – and crime-fiction’s – most highly regarded authors. She lives in Reykjavik with her husband and three children.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 
Thanks for the blog tour support x