Dark mystery set in northern Iceland

14th December 2020

Winterkill by Ragnar Jónasson, dark mystery set in northern Iceland. Translated by David Warriner.

Winterkill is the 6th (and final…) book in Ragnar Jónasson’s Dark Iceland series. I have enjoyed every one…

As ever, the main character is Ari Thór Arason. Ari Thór has been promoted to police inspector in Siglufjörður, a small ex-fishing town in the north of Iceland. One of the delights of the series is seeing how Ari Thór has progressed in both his professional and personal life… his old boss, Tómas, has relocated down to Reykjavik and ArI Thór is now in charge in Siglufjörður police station. Kristín, his Reykjavik-based girl friend in the first book, now separated and living in Sweden with their son, has returned to the town for Easter – so that Ari Thór can spend some ‘family’ time with Stefnir. He does not, though, have a much time as he anticipated he would.

In the middle of the night, the body of a local girl, is found on the street. She had either jumped, or been pushed, from a balcony three floors up. There are no witnesses. Her mother is distraught, and has no idea what may have happened. Why was she in that house in the first place, and had she been alone or with someone? The girl, Unnur was her name, had been very quiet and hard working at school. No evidence at all that she got in with ‘the wrong crowd’ or would have done anything foolish. Air Thór investigates, but struggles to find a motive…The investigation is difficult, but eventually comes to a very disturbing and frightening conclusion. Icelandic Noir at its best. The story progresses through an exceptionally cold weekend that ends up in a whiteout blizzard. Ragnar is an absolute master at building stories around harsh winter weather conditions in northern Iceland. You can feel the cold seeping off the pages.

Something about this book particularly intrigues me (a mystery in its own right?). The English translation from the Icelandic is via the French edition of Winterkill. The translator is David Warriner, who is also the excellent translator into English of Roxanne Bouchard’s respected mystery series set on the Gaspé Peninsular in Canada. But why go from Icelandic to French to get to English? Not, I would have thought, an easy task…

All in all, Winterkill is a great addition to the Dark Iceland series.

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