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.
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 Reyjavik with her husband and three children.
Firstly, although this is another instalment in the Forbidden Iceland series, it can be read as a standalone. I’d advise on reading the whole series as the background is obviously more thorough, but you don’t feel left behind or as if you’re missing the story.
I love Elma’s character. She’s an addictive character and once you start on her story you have to know more.
Elma returns from maternity leave to a chilling case, where a body is found and they have been particularly gruesomely killed, but why, by who and why? The reasons are shocking and the story itself is extremely dark, disturbing and extremely unsettling. It’s got so much unsaid and yet it doesn’t need to explain. Sadly, you will understand. Unless you live in a cupboard under the stairs! Like most stories that have similar themes you tend to walk away glad for the light having been shone, yet slightly tainted. I was totally on the edge of my seat reading this, as I always am with this author’s work. She frequently puts in the most interesting small details that are far more important than you realise as you read them. It’s never any good looking for them as you really won’t notice them! It’s really no wonder she’s the Icelandic equivalent of Agatha Christie in modern day settings.
With fantastic translation by Victoria Cribb.
With thanks to Anne Cater, Orenda Books and the author for the advanced reading copy of this book.
Books’n’banter 