Publisher's Weekly Review
When a foreign visitor to SiglufjA¶rdur, Iceland, dies of a highly infectious disease that he must have picked up on a trip to Africa, the town is quarantined, in JA3nasson's gripping fourth crime novel featuring policeman Ari ThA3r Arason (after 2018's Blackout). With little work to do as a result, Ari ThA3r takes the opportunity to follow up on a 50-year-old cold case. In 1957, a woman named JA3runn, who lived in a remote region, died after drinking rat poison in her coffee. JA3runn's nephew, HAcdinn, who was only a year old at the time, doubts the official verdict that the poisoning was accidental. HAcdinn has recently come across an old family photo showing him being held by a stranger, who he hopes might have more information about the tragedy. Ari ThA3r soon has his hands full, as he also begins looking into a child abduction and a murder case with political implications. JA3nasson manages to resolve the plot lines plausibly, and is as strong as ever at combining fair-play with psychological depth. Agent: David Headley, DHH Literary (U.K.). (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Jnasson returns from his recent Icelandic stand-alone (The Darkness, 2018) to an equally bleak puzzle for Ari Thr Arason, of the Siglufjrdur police.Just in case the northern Icelandic town isn't isolated enough by geography and climate, Siglufjrdur has been under quarantine ever since a wealthy traveler arrived with a particularly virulent strain of haemorrhagic fever. It seems only appropriate that at a time when Ari Thr's department (Nightblind, 2017, etc.) is in virtual lockdown, a man named Hdinn pressed him to reopen the ice-cold case of Jrunn, Hdinn's aunt, who got a fatal dose of rat poison more than 50 years ago in nearby Hdinsfjdur. Nearby, but even more isolated, the place, devoid of electrical and telephone wires, has been uninhabited ever since Hdinn's father, Gudmundur, retired from the fishing industry to settle his wife, Gudfinna, her sister, Jrunn, and Jrunn's husband, Marus Knutsson, in the godforsaken spot. Ari Thr's attention immediately focuses on a family photograph from 1957 that includes a young man Hdinn can't identify. But his exploration of the past is sidelined by the hit-and-run death of Snorri Ellertsson, an aspiring musician whose scandalous abuse of alcohol and drugs ended the career of his father, prominent politician Ellert Snorrason, and the kidnapping of Kjartan, a little boy taken from his pram while it was parked outside a cafe in which his mother, Sunna, was having coffee with her sister, trusting in Iceland's low incidence of crime outside the pages of genre fiction. Along the way, Ari Thr's inquiries will repeatedly crisscross those of srn, an ambitious TV reporter whose initial assignment to report on the quarantine blossoms into a series of revelations much darker and deadlier.Readers disappointed in the present-day subplots, which are wound up with remarkable dispatch, will be rewarded by the even more disturbing revelations from half a century ago. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Siglufjördur, Iceland, police officer Ari Thór Arason and ambitious Reykjavik reporter Ísrún return (following Blackout, 2018) to investigate a mystery woven into local lore and a scandal linking Iceland's prime minister to murder. Siglufjördur, in Iceland's far north, is quarantined after a tourist succumbs to a deadly, highly contagious virus. With the town's residents reluctant to venture out, Ari Thór has few peacekeeping demands. So, when a beloved local, Hédinn, asks Ari Thór to help identify a mysterious teenager in an old family photograph, he welcomes the diversion. Soon, Ari Thór is immersed in a mystery; around the time the photo was taken, Hédinn's aunt, Jórunn, died after accidentally ingesting rat poison. Ari Thór's investigation into the locals' stories about Hédinn's isolated family farm reveals unanswered questions, including whether the teen could have had a role in Jórunn's death. Against the backdrop of the quarantine and the contrasting bustle of Ísrún's Reykjavik investigation, Ari Thór's dive into haunting oral history cloaks Siglufjördur in eeriness; evocative Nordic crime fiction.--Christine Tran Copyright 2018 Booklist
