The island : a thriller /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The newest superstar on the Icelandic crime fiction scene has arrived with a superb followup to The Darkness .

Shortlisted for the Crime Novel of the Year Award in Iceland
Third Place, Novel of the Year Award 2016 in Iceland, selected by booksellers
One of the bestselling novels in Iceland in 2016

Autumn of 1987 takes a young couple on a romantic trip in the Westfjords holiday--a trip that gets an unexpected ending and has catastrophic consequences.

Ten years later a small group of friends go for a weekend in an old hunting lodge in Elliðaey. A place completely cut off from the outside world, to reconnect. But one of them isn't going to make it out alive. And Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is determined to find the truth in the darkness.

Ragnar Jonasson burst onto the American scene with Snowblind and Nightblind , the first two novels in the Ari Thor thriller series, and the praise was overwhelming. With The Darkness , he launched a new series featuring a completely new sleuth, Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Reykjavik Police department. The Island is the second book in this series.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

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) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Ten years ago, Katla's body was found at her family's Westfjords vacation house, and her father was arrested for her murder. Now, on the tenth anniversary of the crime, Katla's brother, Dagur, and their childhood friends Klara, Alexandra, and Benedikt have reunited for a weekend on a scenic but isolated island. Despite the idyllic location, painful reminders of Katla's death overshadow their gathering, and they are grateful to depart. On the morning of their departure, however, Klara goes missing, and their frantic search reveals her body beneath a cliff. Reykjavik CID Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir (introduced in The Darkness, 2018) is immediately suspicious that Klara's death wasn't an accident. Hulda is certain that the four friends are lying to her about why they've reunited, and Klala's autopsy reveals she was strangled. It's short work for Hulda to uncover the connection to Katla's murder and to find disturbing inconsistencies in her colleagues' case against her father. Another suspense-laden Icelandic gem: Jónasson's confidential, intimate prose evokes both Iceland's harsh, beautiful solitude and the deep connections Icelanders forge.--Christine Tran Copyright 2019 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A prequel to The Darkness (2018) that picks up Inspector Hulda Hermansdttir 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 survivorsthere's literally no one else on the islandis 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 Ldur, 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.Jnasson, 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. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

RAGNAR JONASSON is an international number one bestselling author who has sold over three million books in thirty-six countries worldwide. His books include the Dark Iceland series and the Hulda series. Jonasson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he also works as an investment banker and teaches copyright law at Reykjavik University. He has previously worked on radio and television, including as a TV news reporter for the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, and, since the age of seventeen, has translated fourteen of Agatha Christie's novels. Ragnar is the co-founder of the Reykjavik international crime writing festival Iceland Noir. His critically acclaimed international bestseller The Darkness is soon to be a major TV series, and Outside is soon to be a feature film. Jonasson lives in Reykjavik with his wife and two daughters.