Dark humoured thriller set in ICELAND

23rd June 2023

Thirty Days of Darkness by Jenny Lund Madsen, dark humoured thriller set in Iceland. Translated by Megan Turney.

Hannah Krause-Bendix has a good reputation as an author in her homeland of Denmark. Her fame is perhaps limited to a handful of cultured readers, who love her novellas.

She finds herself reluctantly at a book fair and encounters her nemesis, Jørn Jensen, whom she has dubbed “the world’s worst crime writer” – and who, of course, sells many more books than her and has a great appeal with readers.

Before she realises what has happened, she has accepted a challenge to write a crime novel (after all, she is clear it’s not a challenging genre so it should be an easy task for her) and her steadfast editor (her only friend and biggest fan) Bastian bundles her off to Iceland for a month’s writing retreat, where she can complete the writing project. She will be staying with Ella in fictional Húsafjördur. Here it gets dark early and there are certainly dark doings in the community, enhanced by the inclement environment alluded to in the title of the book.

One death (murder is mooted) after another gets Hannah’s creative juices flowing; one demise is very close to home, and gives her the impetus and inspiration she needs.

Hannah is a curious woman, she has little filter when expressing her thoughts. Some of her views are perhaps better not made public because she can be quite acerbic and critical, and she is very observant of others and of the world around her. She has alcohol dependency too. And yet, she is likeable in a strange way, she takes no hostages and blunders her way through her 30 day stint. Truly a woman on a mission as she writes and  tries to unravel the mysterious deaths, And then Jørn unexpectedly turns up and of course he is technically the super brain when it comes to sleuthing.

There are snippets of interesting information on the connection between Denmark and Iceland because of their history. Although many people in Iceland still speak Danish, Ella, with whom Hannah is lodging does not and so they converse in written form and in a stilted mix of language and mime.

There are plenty of twists and turns, with a unique personality at the heart of the story. This is a dark-humoured debut that makes for a different and compelling read.

The translations works really well.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

Catch the author on Twitter @JennyLundMadsen

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