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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Minor: Pedophilia, Sexual assault
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I really enjoyed this story. I think calling the series Dark Iceland is perfect. I would not normally categorize this type of story as a cozy mystery but it feels that way to me. Maybe it's the long, cold, and dark winters of this northern town in Iceland that makes it feel cozy, I'm not sure. Or maybe it is the well done character builds. Whatever it is, I liked this story, it actually exceeded my expectations. About 1/3 of the way though I ordered the next three books in the series if that says anything. This is the second book by Jonasson I have read and he is definitely headed toward my favorite authors shelves.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Diverse cast of characters:
No
The first few chapters of this book made me groan because they read like an airport paperback thriller. Nothing against that genre, it’s just not for me. I thought about quitting the book. But I stuck with it and I’m glad I did. It ended up being sort of a Agatha Christie tribute: a series of murders and unexplained events happening in a sleepy town where everybody knows everyone, only the town is perpetually covered in snow because it’s in the northernmost point of Iceland and barely habitable.
I liked the character of Ari Thor. I know what it’s like to be in my 20s and having to make tough decisions about the future, especially with a potential spouse in tow. I was actually drawn to this because he was supposed to be a former theology student. I wished they had touched on that more but still, I could relate to his character.
The rest of the characters are hit-or-miss although all are harboring secrets so they demand your attention. This isn’t Jonasson’s strong suit: he clearly knows how to flesh out some more than others. It’s a tough thing to do for a first book and he’s not bad at it per se but there’s room for improvement.
The plotting here is kind of rocky too. I would get invested one way and get jerked in another, only to have little explained thanks to obstructionism, which is one of my least favorite writing devices. The point was to draw the story out…and perhaps it was drawn out a little too far.
Still, Jonasson gets the atmosphere of remote Iceland down pat. I felt the claustrophobia in this book. Also, it has one of the better endings to a novel I’ve read this year. That alone, combined with the compassion I have for first time novelists, earned it a 4th star.
I liked the character of Ari Thor. I know what it’s like to be in my 20s and having to make tough decisions about the future, especially with a potential spouse in tow. I was actually drawn to this because he was supposed to be a former theology student. I wished they had touched on that more but still, I could relate to his character.
The rest of the characters are hit-or-miss although all are harboring secrets so they demand your attention. This isn’t Jonasson’s strong suit: he clearly knows how to flesh out some more than others. It’s a tough thing to do for a first book and he’s not bad at it per se but there’s room for improvement.
The plotting here is kind of rocky too. I would get invested one way and get jerked in another, only to have little explained thanks to obstructionism, which is one of my least favorite writing devices. The point was to draw the story out…and perhaps it was drawn out a little too far.
Still, Jonasson gets the atmosphere of remote Iceland down pat. I felt the claustrophobia in this book. Also, it has one of the better endings to a novel I’ve read this year. That alone, combined with the compassion I have for first time novelists, earned it a 4th star.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
“If there was anything Ari Thór had learned during his short time in Siglufjördur, it was that secrets were liable to spread with astonishing speed in such a small community.”
Ari Thor gets a job as a police officer - one of the few in the small Iceland town of Siglugfjordur - and has to leave behind his girl friend to travel to it, to a remote town that sometimes gets blocked off from the rest of the country when the weather gets bad. Even though he’s told by the other players in town that nothing bad ever really happens there, when Ari Thor gets there, he’s thrown into a murder mystery that he has to help solve. Not only is a notorious writer pushed down the stairs and killed, but a woman is found shirtless outside her home, nearly dead. And Ari Thor gets a call from someone on the phone that sounds like he’s asking for help. This book started off really strong. I was curious about the phone call and there were a couple of short chapters with an unnamed narrator who was being held up in her home. But those chapters were sort of a red herring, alluding to something Karl had done a long time ago - Karl had the main role in a play the town was throwing and he was responsible for nearly killing his wife and was going to claim the insurance money. The play felt like it came out of nowhere; it felt like we didn’t hear about it until partway into the book, and the characters in it play an important part in the book. I guess I would have like the introductions to those characters more early on. I did like how each character played some sort of part in the mystery. We found out the famous writer was actually a cheat, and he died because he got into a fight with the son of the real writer, and so his death was kind of an accident, and Ari Thor thinks about the injustice that Karl escapes being charged while another person is charged with a death that was an accident. This is a series, so there’s a suggestion at the end that there’s more that the characters are up to, and personally Ari Thor is in some trouble because he cheated on his girlfriend, who decided to go up and visit him. I’m interested in seeing what happens, but I’m not chomping at the bit for the next book. The second book might be more fast paced though, because this book did have a lot of character info dumps but in the next one we already know who they are. One thing that was interesting is the setting of Iceland and the references to their government, like the protests in Reykjavik, and I had to remind myself the book didn’t take place in the US. I was also expecting the book to be more of a wilderness thriller because of the title, so that threw me off.
Ari Thor gets a job as a police officer - one of the few in the small Iceland town of Siglugfjordur - and has to leave behind his girl friend to travel to it, to a remote town that sometimes gets blocked off from the rest of the country when the weather gets bad. Even though he’s told by the other players in town that nothing bad ever really happens there, when Ari Thor gets there, he’s thrown into a murder mystery that he has to help solve. Not only is a notorious writer pushed down the stairs and killed, but a woman is found shirtless outside her home, nearly dead. And Ari Thor gets a call from someone on the phone that sounds like he’s asking for help. This book started off really strong. I was curious about the phone call and there were a couple of short chapters with an unnamed narrator who was being held up in her home. But those chapters were sort of a red herring, alluding to something Karl had done a long time ago - Karl had the main role in a play the town was throwing and he was responsible for nearly killing his wife and was going to claim the insurance money. The play felt like it came out of nowhere; it felt like we didn’t hear about it until partway into the book, and the characters in it play an important part in the book. I guess I would have like the introductions to those characters more early on. I did like how each character played some sort of part in the mystery. We found out the famous writer was actually a cheat, and he died because he got into a fight with the son of the real writer, and so his death was kind of an accident, and Ari Thor thinks about the injustice that Karl escapes being charged while another person is charged with a death that was an accident. This is a series, so there’s a suggestion at the end that there’s more that the characters are up to, and personally Ari Thor is in some trouble because he cheated on his girlfriend, who decided to go up and visit him. I’m interested in seeing what happens, but I’m not chomping at the bit for the next book. The second book might be more fast paced though, because this book did have a lot of character info dumps but in the next one we already know who they are. One thing that was interesting is the setting of Iceland and the references to their government, like the protests in Reykjavik, and I had to remind myself the book didn’t take place in the US. I was also expecting the book to be more of a wilderness thriller because of the title, so that threw me off.