Many thanks to NetGalley, Minotaur Books and Macmillan Audio for gifting me an audio ARC of the latest thriller by Ragnar Jonasson, wonderfully narrated by Sam Woolf. All opinions expressed in this review are my own – 4 stars!
In 1983, at a former sanatorium in Iceland, now a hospital ward, nurse Yrsa is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermansdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician is also found dead from a fall from a balcony; later ruled as a suicide. He was presumed to have commited the murder as well and the case was closed. Almost 30 years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, but returns to Iceland when offered a job – the job from which Detective Hermannsdottir is about to retire. Helgi is writing his thesis on the sanatorium murders and begins his investigation.
The story goes back and forth between these two timelines and with different POV. The atmosphere is dark and the story spools out mostly as interviews, so it’s a bit slow. It’s a nod to Agatha Christie’s novels (be sure to read the author’s note at the end), and the building tension and many suspects follow suit. A good old-fashioned murder mystery!
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