Review: WHITE OUT, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
  this edition made available by my local library through Libby
  
  
• first published 2017
• Book 5 of 6: Dark Iceland 
• translated by Quentin Bates 

Synopsis (Amazon)

Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kálfshamarvík.

Did she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop?
With winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari Thór Arason discovers that the victim’s mother and young sister also lost their lives in this same spot, twenty-five years earlier.

As the dark history and its secrets of the village are unveiled, and the death toll begins to rise, the Siglufjordur detectives must race against the clock to find the killer, before another tragedy takes place.

(When the body of a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted Icelandic village of Kálfshamarvík, police officer Ari Thór Arason uncovers a startling and terrifying connection to an earlier series of deaths, as the killer remains on the loose…)

Dark, chilling and complex, Whiteout is a haunting, atmospheric and stunningly plotted thriller from one of Iceland’s bestselling crime writers. 

My Take

Asta Karadottir has returned to the scene of a terrible event that she witnessed. She hasn't been there for 25 years. So why has she returned? She says that she is writing a thesis about her father who had survived the deaths of her mother and her sister twenty five years earlier.

Asta has written to the owner of the house, a well known media personality, asking if she may stay for a few days, and she is given her old childhood room. The people in the house are those who were there 25 years earlier. Within two days Asta herself is dead, suffering the same fate as her mother and sister.

Did Asta return to commit suicide, or is the same killer still at large? There is a limited cast of suspects, and fairly quickly another person dies.

Detectives have already arrived to investigate Asta's death and each of the suspects is scrutinised carefully. DNA evidence provides clues but is the finger pointing at the right person?

One of the detectives, Ari Thor, brings his very pregnant girlfriend to the locality with him, as it seems unlikely he will make it home for Christmas. 

Icelandic crime fiction has a different flavour, and is truly noir.

My rating: 4.5

I've also read 4.4, THE MIST