Genre: Mystery, Crime
Published: 2007
Personal rating: 4.5/5
Yearly count: 7
After the body of a young German student—with his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest—is discovered at a university in Reykjavík, the police waste no time in making an arrest. The victim's family isn't convinced they have the right man, however, so they ask Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, attorney and single mother of two, to investigate. It's not long before Thóra and Matthew Reich, her new associate, discover something unusual about the deceased student: He had been obsessed with the country's grisly history of torture, execution, and witch hunts. As Thóra and Matthew dig deeper, they make the connection between long-bygone customs and the student's murder. But the shadow of dark traditions conceals secrets in both the past and the present, and the investigators soon realize that nothing is as it seems . . . and that no one can be trusted.
This book was definitely a page-turner. With every bit of the puzzle revealed the mystery grew deeper, urging me to keep reading to figure out what really happened. The pace was fast – the entire investigation is done within about a week – but it never got too fast, nor did it ever become unbelievable, despite the sometimes bizarre subject matter. The good writing and the likeable Thóra as main character made me fall in love with this book. The setting of the story in Iceland was icing on the cake.
However, I have one quibble with this book that made me give it four and a half stars instead of the full five. The ending – the conclusion of the mystery – was in my opinion fairly sudden. I like the solution, the whodunit and the why – but the way mainly Thóra pieced everything together was too easy in the end, too much like a lucky coincidence. I thought that took away from an otherwise brilliant book with a very well thought out plot.
But all in all I highly enjoyed this book. I highly recommend it and I will definitely go in search of the next book in the series about Thóra!
1 comments:
Oh good, you liked it! I am just about to start book 3 in the series. The fourth one was just published too. I really enjoy Thora very much. The second book was a little eerie and sad, and I loved it. I hope you do too. I want to go to Iceland now too!
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