Review: DEAD SWEET, Katrín Júlíusdóttir

• 
  This edition an e-book on Kindle (Amazon)
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C7RC7Z3M
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Orenda Books, Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 7, 2023
• Originally published in Icelandic 2020
• Translated into English by Quentin Bates 202
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 253 pages 

Synopsis (Amazon) 

When a celebrated government official is found dead after his surprise birthday party, a young police officer uncovers a terrifying world of financial crime, sinister cults and disturbing secret lives. Icelandic politician Katrín Júlíusdóttir's award-winning debut – first in a breathtaking series…

A murder is just the beginning…

When Óttar Karlsson, a wealthy and respected government official and businessman, is found murdered, after failing to turn up at his own surprise birthday party, the police are at a loss. It isn't until young police officer Sigurdís finds a well-hidden safe in his impersonal luxury apartment that clues start emerging.

As Óttar's shady business dealings become clear, a second, unexpected line of enquiry emerges, when Sigurdís finds a US phone number in the safe, along with papers showing regular money transfers to an American account.

Following the trail to Minnesota, trauma rooted in Sigurdís's own childhood threatens to resurface and the investigation strikes chillingly close to home…

Atmospheric, deeply unsettling and full of unexpected twists and turns, Dead Sweet is a startling debut thriller that uncovers a terrifying world of financial crime, sinister cults and disturbing secret lives, kicking off an addictive, chilling new series.

My Take

Those who read this blog regularly know that it takes a lot of provocation for me to write a negative review. I am a little daunted by the fact that this debut book won the Blackbird Award, an Icelandic crime-writing prize in 2020. Maybe it just illustrates how different my tastes are to those of Icelandic readers.

The longer this book goes on the more undisciplined the structure feels. - please be aware that what follows may be plot spoilers.

The plot begins with a murder of a man turning 50, on the eve of his birthday party; then we find that the murdered man is not the public spirited public servant he appears to be. That he has grown wealthy at the expense of  "clients", that he has profited from the sale of government property,  that he has set up dummy accounts and companies overseas and filled them with incredible amounts of money.  Also that his mother and sister are aware of a very nasty dark side to his character. His fiance however is apparently totally unaware.  And then one of the police investigators goes rogue, following a lead that takes her to America which unearths even seedier information about the dead. 

Now add another couple of unrelated plots. 

By this point, the whole story had really lost its credibility and  I was really turned off.

From my point of view, not only did the book need tighter plot lines, but also the writing (or maybe the translation) needed greater maturity of language. 

My rating: 3.2

About the author

Katrín Júlíusdóttir received the Blackbird Award, an Icelandic crime-writing prize, for her first novel, Dead Sweet in 2020. Her debut novel was reviewed well by critics and hit the best-selling lists in the first weeks after publication. Katrí n has a political background and was a member of Parliament from 2003 until 2016. Before she was elected to Parliament, Katrí n was an advisor and project manager at a tech company and a senior buyer and CEO in the retail sector, as well as the Managing Director of a student union during her uni years. She worked from a young age in the fishing industry, as a store clerk and took nighttime shifts at a pizza place. She studied Anthropology and has an MBA from Reykjaví k University. She was raised in Kó pavogur, about 15 minutes' drive from downtown Reykjaví k. She now lives in the neighbouring town of Garð abæ r with her family. She is married to author Bjarni M. Bjarnason, who encouraged her to start writing. They have four boys. 

About the translator

Quentin Bates escaped English suburbia as a teenager, jumping at the chance of a gap year working in Iceland. For a variety of reasons, the gap year stretched to become a gap decade, during which time he went native in the north of Iceland, acquiring a new language a new profession as a seaman and a family, before decamping en masse for England. He worked as a truck driver, teacher, netmaker and trawlerman at various times before falling into journalism, largely by accident. He is the author of a series of crime novels set in present-day Iceland (Frozen Out, Cold Steal, Chilled to the Bone, Winterlude, Cold Comfort and Thin Ice which have been published worldwide. He has translated all of Ragnar Jó nasson’ s Dark Iceland series.