Review: THE MISSING CASE OF THE MISSING CRIME WRITER, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
  this edition published by Penguin Random House UK 2026
  
• English translation by Victoria Cribbs
• ISBN 978-0-241-71111-8
• 314 pages

Synopsis (publisher)

One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing.

There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective, Helgi, to crack the case before it's leaked to the press.

As he interviews the people closest to her – a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge – he realises that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than her stories.

As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of a very unexpected life, before someone else goes missing . . .

My Take

A central theme to this novel is why people disappear. Helgi occupies an office once occupied by Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir whom we met in THE DARKNESS  when she had been forced into early retirement and then disappeared. No explanation has ever been given for her disappearance and occasionally Helgi thinks of her.

However the case he is working on at present is the disappearance of a popular crime fiction novelist who has apparently ceased writing after publishing 10 very popular novels over a period of twenty years. He learns from her friends that she has done disappearing acts before.

Helgi has other problems on his mind too - a new girlfriend is being stalked by one he walked on after she had become violent towards him.  

My rating: 4.5

I've also read

4.4, THE MIST

4.5, WHITE OUT 

4.5, WINTERKILL 

4.6, THE MIST

4.6, RUPTURE 

4.7, THE DARKNESS 

4.7, REYKJAVIK - with Katrin Jakobsdottir

4.6, OUTSIDE  

Review: OUTSIDE, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
  this edition published by Random House 2022
• translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
  
• ISBN 978-0-241-49366-3
• 324 pages  

Synopsis (publisher)

Four friends. One night. Not everyone will come out alive . . . 

In a deadly Icelandic snowstorm, four friends break into an abandoned hunting lodge, hoping to wait out the storm until morning.

But nothing can prepare them for what's inside...

With no other option, they are forced to spend a terrifying night in the cabin: watching as intently and silently as they themselves are being watched. As the night darkens, old secrets spill into the light, and tensions rise between the four friends. Soon it's clear that what they've discovered in the cabin is far from the only mystery lurking there.

Nor the only thing to be afraid of... 

My Take

The story opens with the group of four friends battling through a snow storm to find shelter in an abandoned hut. They have come to this remote area in Iceland to hunt ptarmigan but the weather has closed in.  They were university students together but haven't met for a number of years, so this is a sort of reunion. The snowstorm emphasises how treacherous Icelandic weather can be. The days are short and darkness closes in quickly. When they find the hut the door is padlocked and they need to break in.

Terrified by what they discover inside, they decide that two of them will go back for help.

We gradually piece together bits of the past through narratives from each of the group.

A very atmospheric thriller. 

My rating: 4.6

I've also read

4.4, THE MIST

4.5, WHITE OUT 

4.5, WINTERKILL 

4.6, THE MIST

4.6, RUPTURE 

4.7, THE DARKNESS 

4.7, REYKJAVIK - with Katrin Jakobsdottir

Review: REYKJAVIK, Ragnar Jonasson & Katrin Jakobsdottir

• 
  this edition a paperback published by Penguin Random House UK 2023
  
• first published in Icelandic 2022
• translated into English by Victoria Cribb
• made available by my local library 
• ISBN 978-0-241-62600-9
• 371 pages 

Synopsis (publisher)

An ice-cold mystery haunts Reykjavík in 1986, in this heart-stopping new crime novel co-written by the Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdottir

What happened to Lara?

Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lara spends the summer on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík.

In early August, the girl disappears without a trace.

The mystery becomes Iceland's greatest unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there?

Thirty years later, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lara's case. But as he draws closer to discovering the secret, it's soon clear that this is a mystery someone will stop at nothing to keep unsolved...

My Take

The book is dedicated to Agatha Christie, and certainly there are some Christie-like effects to the plot. The story takes place over 30 years, from the mysterious disappearance of 14 year old Lara to the climax of the story in 1986, the year of the celebration of Iceland's 200th Anniversary.

I thought the Icelandic climate played a less-than-usual role in the story. There were plenty of red herrings and the eventual revelation of the murderer came as a real surprise in true Christie fashion.  

My rating: 4.7

I've also read (by Ragnar Jonasson)

4.4, THE MIST

4.5, WHITE OUT 

4.5, WINTERKILL 

4.6, THE MIST

4.6, RUPTURE 

4.7, THE DARKNESS 

Review: THE DARKNESS, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
  This book read as an e-book on Libby from my local library
  
• The Darkness (2018)
• (The first book in the Hulda series)
• Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb  

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

Spanning the icy streets of Reykjavik, the Icelandic highlands and cold, isolated fjords, The Darkness is an atmospheric thriller from Ragnar Jónasson, one of the most exciting names in Nordic Noir.

The body of a young Russian woman washes up on an Icelandic shore. After a cursory investigation, the death is declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed.

Over a year later Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police is forced into early retirement at 64. She dreads the loneliness, and the memories of her dark past that threaten to come back to haunt her. But before she leaves she is given two weeks to solve a single cold case of her choice. She knows which one: the Russian woman whose hope for asylum ended on the dark, cold shore of an unfamiliar country. Soon Hulda discovers that another young woman vanished at the same time, and that no one is telling her the whole story. Even her colleagues in the police seem determined to put the brakes on her investigation. Meanwhile the clock is ticking.

Hulda will find the killer, even if it means putting her own life in danger. 

My Take

Another title that I'm reading for discussion with my U3A Crime Fiction Group. 

Although it is the first in the Hulda series, chronologically it is the last in her story. I recently read THE MIST and I think I have read them in the correct chronological order. I am wondering if this "out of order" feature is actually based on the discovery of the books by the English publisher.

Hulda is not ready for retirement but her boss has already discovered a younger person to replace her. Hulda has a reputation of being hard to work with, although over the years she has achieved incredible results, but she is not a team player.  

My Rating: 4.7

I've also read

• 4.4, THE MIST
• 4.5, WHITE OUT 
• 4.5, WINTERKILL 
• 4.6, THE MIST
• 4.6, RUPTURE   

Hulda Series
   1. The Darkness (2018)
   2. The Island (2019)
   3. The Mist (2020)  

Review: RUPTURE, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
  This edition read as an e-book on Libby, provided by my local library 
  
• published in English originally 2016, in Icelandic 2012
• translated by Quentin Bates 
• The fourth book in the Dark Iceland series 

Synopsis (Fantastic Fiction)

1955.Two young couples move to the uninhabited, isolated fjord of Hedinsfjörður. Their stay ends abruptly when one of the women meets her death in mysterious circumstances. The case is never solved. Fifty years later an old photograph comes to light, and it becomes clear that the couples may not have been alone on the fjord after all…

In nearby Siglufjörður, young policeman Ari Thór tries to piece together what really happened that fateful night, in a town where no one wants to know, where secrets are a way of life. He's assisted by Ísrún, a news reporter in Reykjavik, who is investigating an increasingly chilling case of her own. Things take a sinister turn when a child goes missing in broad daylight. With a stalker on the loose, and the town of Siglufjörður in quarantine, the past might just come back to haunt them.

Haunting, frightening and complex, Rupture is a dark and atmospheric thriller from one of Iceland's foremost crime writers.

My Take

I seem to be reading books by this Icelandic author all out of order. This title I am reading for discussion with my U3A Crime Reading Group.

However, a saving grace, you do seem to be able to read them as stand-alones, and they do make compelling reads.   

This story in RUPTURE does not originally seem to involve a crime, until detective Ari Thor, time on his hands because the town is in lockdown, doing a favour for a friend, works out that there is a mystery in the old photo from 50 years before.  A great puzzle. 

My rating: 4.6 

I've also read

• 4.4, THE MIST
• 4.5, WHITE OUT 
• 4.5, WINTERKILL 
• 4.6, THE MIST 

 Dark Iceland series in English
   1. Snowblind (2015)
   2. Nightblind (2015)
   3. Blackout (2016)
   4. Rupture (2016)
   5. Whiteout (2017)
   6. Winterkill (2020) 

Hulda
   1. The Darkness (2018)
   2. The Island (2019)
   3. The Mist (2020) 

Review: THE MIST, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
  This edition read as an e-book on Libby, supplied by my local library
  
• Published: 16 February 2021
• ISBN: 9781405934886
• Pages: 352  

Synopsis (publisher)

The final nail-biting instalment in the critically acclaimed Hidden Iceland series

1987. An isolated farm house in the east of Iceland.

The snowstorm should have shut everybody out. But it didn't.

The couple should never have let him in. But they did.

An unexpected guest, a liar, a killer. Not all will survive the night. And Detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir will be haunted forever.

My Take

As you do sometimes, I was half way through this book when I realised that the story was familiar, but as I couldn't remember how it finished, I continued.

The fact that it was the third in a series meant nothing to me, and it works well as a standalone.

Two days before Christmas, in a blinding snow storm, a knock comes at the door of an isolated farm house in East Iceland. Only two people live there, but they are expecting their daughter to come for Christmas.They can't turn the stranger away and invite him to stay the night in the hope that the storm will have abated in the morning and he can be on his way.. The phone landline dies and the power goes out, and Erla, the wife, doesn't believe the tale the stranger asks them to believe. Her husband is more trusting.

And so murder is committed.

By the time the investigation begins Detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir from Reyjkavik has just returned to work and she probably shouldn't have been there, but she feels it is better to be occupied, rather than be at home mourning her loss.

As Hulda unpacks what has happened at the farm house, she make connections, some of which the reader has probably suspected, but some that come as a complete surprise. 

Be sure to ask yourself the meaning of the title. 

My rating: 4.6

I have also read

• 4.4, THE MIST
• 4.5, WHITE OUT 
• 4.5, WINTERKILL 

Review: WINTERKILL, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
  This edition made available as an e-book on Libby by my local library
  
• ISBN: 9781913193447
• ISBN-10: 1913193446
• #6 in Dark Iceland series
• Number Of Pages: 276
• Published: 1st March 2021
• translated into English from French by David Warriner

Synopsis (publisher)

When the body of a 19-year-old girl is found on the main street of Siglufjordur, Police Inspector Ari Thor battles a violent Icelandic storm in an increasingly dangerous hunt for her killer . . . The chilling, claustrophobic finale to the international bestselling Dark Iceland series.

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjordur, the northernmost town in Iceland, as crowds of tourists arrive to visit the majestic ski slopes. 

Ari Thor Arason is now a police inspector, but he's separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air. 

Three days before Easter, a 19-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident, and when an old man in a local nursing home writes "She was murdered" again and again on the wall of his room, there is every suggestion that something more sinister lies at the heart of her death . . . 

As the extreme weather closes in, cutting the power and access to Siglufjordur, Ari Thor must piece together the puzzle to reveal a horrible truth . . . one that will leave no one unscathed. Chilling, claustrophobic and disturbing, Winterkill marks the startling conclusion to the million-copy bestselling Dark Iceland series and cements Ragnar Jonasson as one of the most exciting authors in crime fiction. 

My Take

Easter is approaching when a girl's body is found near a house in the main street. At first she seems to have fallen from a first floor balcony but there are no witnesses. And then the balcony has only her fingerprints, and the owner is away in Reyjavik, and the conclusion is that the girl must have jumped. Her mother is understandably distraught and her father flies in from America. Both seem convinced that she was pushed, and they in turn push Ari Thor to investigate the incident thoroughly. 

His girlfriend and young son arrive from Sweden for the weekend, and Ari Thor is determined to give them as much time as he can. He gives them his house and stays in the local hotel. There are aspects of this case that are unsettling and on closer attention he unearths some disturbing ideas. 

In the long run Ari Thor discovers another murder, one that others had accepted as a natural death.

I find it hard to put a finger on what is different about Icelandic writing. I think Jonasson's style is deceptively simple, and it is not just the effect of the text having been translated. 

My rating: 4.5 

I've also read

• 4.4, THE MIST
  
• 4.5, WHITE OUT  

Series
Dark Iceland
   1. Snowblind (2015)
   2. Nightblind (2015)
   3. Blackout (2016)
   4. Rupture (2016)
   5. Whiteout (2017)
   6. Winterkill (2020)

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 

Review: THE MIST, Ragnar Jonasson

• 
   First published in Icelandic in 2017
  
• Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb 
•  Published in English by Penguin Random House: 30 April 2020
•  ISBN: 978-0-718-18908-2
•  Pages: 302

Synopsis  (Penguin Random House)

The final nail-biting instalment in the critically acclaimed Hidden Iceland series

1987. An isolated farm house in the east of Iceland. The snowstorm should have shut everybody out. But it didn't. The couple should never have let him in. But they did. An unexpected guest, a liar, a killer. Not all will survive the night. And Detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir will be haunted forever.

My Take

The Prologue tells us that Reykjavík detective is coming back to work after 2 months leave following a family tragedy. She is not sure she is ready to return to work but she knows it will be better than what is happening every day at the moment. A suspected murder has been called in from a farm in the east of Iceland. The bodies have been lying there since at least Christmas, over 2 months.

The time frame then jumps back 2 months, before Christmas, two settings: the farm in the east, and Hulda's own home in Reykjavík where she and her husband and teenage daughter are preparing for Christmas. In addition Hulda is investigating another case: a teenage girl who has gone missing while taking a gap year to travel on her own around Iceland.

Predictably these plot strands come together but what is not predictable is the how and why of their concatenating. Very cleverly plotted, and an excellent read.

My rating: 4.4

About the author
Ragnar Jonasson is an international number one bestselling author who has sold over one and a half million books worldwide. He was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, where he also works as an investment banker and teaches copyright law at Reykjavík University. He has previously worked on radio and television, including as a TV news reporter for the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, and, from the age of seventeen, has translated fourteen of Agatha Christie's novels. His critically acclaimed international bestseller The Darkness is soon to be a major TV series.