Thriller set in SICILY
A dark psychological thriller set in AKRANES and REYKJAVIK, Iceland
7th July 2026
The Last Tenant by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, dark psychological thriller set in Akranes and Reykjavik, Iceland.
TR: Victoria Cribb
No. 6 in the Forbidden Iceland series
The Last Tenant by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir is a tense and dark psychological thriller in the Forbidden Iceland series, featuring the detective Elma. The book begins with an eerie account by an anonymous woman of being afraid of the dark. The childhood sensation of fear she experienced when hearing tales of Icelandic monsters had at some point become an actual terror when real people revealed the monsters within them. We see that she has survived the trauma but the fear in her account is carried forward to the next scene, where we see a man preparing to receive a young woman into his home. He recalls that the last time a young woman had been in his home it hadn’t ended well.
Eva Björg Ægisdóttir is a past master at suspense and creating dark, fearful settings for her novels. As with any Noir novel, the setting is an integral part of building the atmosphere. The author of The Last Tenant focuses more on characterisation than on lengthy descriptions of locations, but she deploys darkness, bleak locations and unfavourable weather to great advantage. She contrasts the drama with the rather more mundane events in the lives of Elma, the police detective protagonist, her family and her colleagues. Elma is immediately involved in a murder enquiry when the skeleton of an adult and a baby are discovered in a barn at a remote, abandoned farmhouse near Akranes. The police swing into action, calling in the various specialists and beginning the investigation to determine who the dead people were and how they came to be buried together.
The chapters focus on different characters in turn, so next we meet Karitas, a young single mother to four-year-old Bessi. They are moving to Akranes from Reykjavik. Karitas is starting a new life, after falling out with her family, and has a new job to go to. Her new landlord, Baldvin, is painted as a bit of an oddball and Karitas is conflicted. She is both wary of him and inclined to try to trust him. She very much wants to, but she worries about protecting her young son. When she meets her friendly neighbour, Kristófer, he confirms that Baldvin has always been rather strange. Kristófer becomes both an ally and a confidant for Karitas as she attempts to settle into her new home.
While Elma is managing the demanding role of chief investigator, she’s also trying to be present for her toddler daughter and her partner and colleague, Sævar. This balancing act is tricky and made more fraught when she discovers that Sævar is not being entirely honest with her.
Both plotlines in The Last Tenant refer to the histories of the characters involved. The murder investigation aspect is new to all readers. For fans of the series, Elma and Sævar’s story is familiar but with certain unresolved elements. You definitely don’t need to have read the previous books in order to follow the story. In both the plot and the sub-plot there are twists and surprises galore and I defy any reader to guess what’s going on until the end. The book is highly recommended and likely to be finished in a sitting.
Sue for the TripFiction Team
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