- This edition read as an e-book on my Kindle (Amazon)
- Translated from Icelandic to English by Victoria Cribb
- ASIN : B0DKBLKQLK
- Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton, Publication date : October 9, 2025
- Print length : 410 pages
- ISBN-13 : 978-1399722902
- Part of series : The Black Ice
Synopsis (Amazon)
Five friends. One devastating reunion. The new thriller from the legendary Icelandic bestseller (The Black Ice)
AMONG THE MOURNERS AT A FUNERAL, ONE OF IS THEM IS A KILLER...
A group of young professionals travel to the Westman Islands off the coast of Iceland to attend an old friend's wake. Their reunion soon turns into a living nightmare, as the memories of a party they attended at university, and desperately tried to forget, come rushing back.
When two bodies are found on a rocky beach close to the refurbished lighthouse keeper's house that the group had stayed in, medical examiner Iðunn is sent to provide the local police assistance.
For Iðunn, who grew up on the island, this takes her back to the heart of her complex family and the ghosts of her own past she would prefer to keep at bay.
But as the deadly secrets soon become insurmountable, can any of them escape unscathed?
My Take
What a tangled web! The author makes the read work overtime to get the sequence of events sorted out.
The events take place in the last week of January but there is a very convoluted time frame, and at least two settings. Nor are the chapters in order. It reminded me at the beginning of a choose your own adventure book, but once where the author had taken the finished chapters and shuffled them into a semi-random order. Not quite - but you get my drift.
Idunn is Iceland's only pathologist and she is sent off to the Westmann Islands to work out what has happened, and how there are so many dead bodies.
Four days earlier a group of friends arrived by ferry from Reykjavic to attend the funeral of a friend whom they haven't seen since they were students at university in the capital 7 years before. They are not clear about how she has died and they are all avoiding thinking too much about when they last saw her.
In 4 days time 4 of them will be dead, and the investigation will begin.
An incredibly complex story, so many strands. It really puts this author on another plane in crime fiction.
This is #2 in the Black Ice series, and we meet up with part of the investigation team who featured in the previous novel CAN'T RUN, CAN'T HIDE
My rating: 4.8
I've also read
- 4.8, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME
- 5.0, THE SILENCE OF THE SEA
- 4.8, WHY DID YOU LIE?
- 4.9, THE PREY
- 4.5, THE DAY IS DARK
- 4.8, CAN'T RUN, CAN'T HIDE - #1 from the Black Ice series
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