Lead Review

• Book: The Creak on the Stairs
• Location: Akranes
• Author: Eva Björg Ægisdóttir

Review Author: Tina Hartas

4.5*
This is a debut and a hugely competently put together story – a great addition to the Icelandic Noir stable.

I was delighted to listen to the book as an Audiobook because the narration by Di Croft is solid and engaging. She also has got her tongue around the Icelandic names – and there are quite a few – which saved me that awful experience of reading, finger pointing to each syllable and gurning, in an attempt to make a passable sound that resembled Old Norse and Chaucerian English and not modern day Icelandic.

Fortunately the main characters have names that work with an english-speaking listener/reader! Elma, a detective, has moved from Reykjavik after the break-up of her long term relationship back to the small port town of Akranes, where she grew up. Given that statistically there is an average of one homicide per year in the whole of Iceland, she is pretty certain that she will not be unduly stretched. Akranes, however, proves to be the exception to the otherwise low murder numbers across the country. Elma, together with her investigating colleagues Sævar and Hörður, is soon having to deal with the body of airline pilot, Elisabet, washed up at the local lighthouse. Is there foul play? Who would have wanted to harm her?

For me the pace of the book was pitch perfect. The author takes her time to set out the story and weave in history from the 1990s – past and present dovetail very well. It is as much a story about murder as it is about small town dynamics and what goes on behind closed doors. Childhood relationships fan out into the wider community and we learn a lot about the neglect that Elisabet suffered as a child, after her father died at sea, and her younger brother lived but a short time. Her mother struggled to cope and Elisabet was largely left to her own devices.

The setting is excellently evoked, the rolling seas, the cold weather – it is Winter in the present day when the investigations are under way.

This is a gripping story and easy to follow and the plotting is incredibly well laid out. It is the first in the Forbidden Iceland series, so am already looking forward to the next book!

Back to book