Publisher's Weekly Review
Two tales of personal and familial anguish, decades apart, drive this chilling standalone from Icelandic author Sigurdardóttir (Someone to Watch over Me). In the present, single father Odinn Hafsteinsson, who works for the State Supervisory Agency, investigates abuses that may have occurred during the 1970s at the Krókur care home for delinquent boys, located on a former farm in a remote part of Iceland. Those who were mistreated could be entitled to damages. Meanwhile, Odinn fears that he caused his ex-wife's death and that he has thus done irreparable psychic damage to his 11-year-old daughter, Rún, who suffers from nightmares involving her late mother. Flash back to 1974. Aldís, a teenage girl who's estranged from her mother and performs grueling domestic duties at Krókur, becomes infatuated with Einar, a boy at the home with a terrible secret in his past. When Einar and another boy disappear, Aldís pays a terrible price. The two narratives converge on an exciting climax that testifies to Sigurdardóttir's command of psychological nuance and bitter irony. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
When Ódinn Hafsteinsson's ex-wife, Lára, dies, he becomes full-time father to 11-year-old Rún. Determined to redress his history of lackluster parenting, Ódinn trades his travel-intensive job for a sedate investigator position at the State Supervisory Agency, where he is assigned the case of the Krókur home for delinquent boys, which closed soon after two boys died in an accident there in 1974. Recent high-profile cases have revealed abuses in Icelandic foster-care homes, and Ódinn is tasked with determining if any of Krokur's boys have a case against the state. Soon, uncooperative witnesses and the discovery of threats targeting the case's recently deceased former investigator breed a horrific certainty in Ódinn that the boys were murdered. Sigurdardóttir (The Silence of the Sea, 2015), a master at weaving in dark supernatural elements, sets the bureaucratic details of Ódinn's investigation against the creepy atmosphere of the remote Krókur home and hints that Lára's ghost has returned to avenge her suspicious death. A twisty, haunting Scandinavian gem.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2017 Booklist
