Table of Contents
My first introduction to the works of Ragnar Jonasson was Nightblind. I read Nightblind in 2018 and while i was reading book 2 in the series, the series was already up to book #5. Additionally, Ragnar started a second series in 2018 the Hidden Island series. That series was up to book #3 in 2021 when I read The Darkness.. Anyway, as I discovered the books I got really confused about what book number I read in what series! Here is book ! in the Hidden Iceland Series The Darkness
The Darkness
The Darkness features Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police. A 64 year-old widow she is waiting out her time until she can retire at 65. However, her employers have other ideas and soon Hulda is forced into an early retirement. She is given two weeks to go home and wait until her official retirement begins.
Rather than being allowed to continue to work on her caseload, she is told she can work on a cold case of her choice.
Hulda chooses the case of a young Russian woman whose body had washed up on an Icelandic shore a year earlier. A cursory investigation was completed. The death was declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed.
As Hulda starts to dig into the case, she quickly realizes it may not have been a suicide but rather a murder.
As the novel progresses the reader is provided two parallel story lines told in flashbacks
One story line involves a mother who had to place her illegitimate baby daughter in a care facility because she couldn’t afford to take care of her. And their struggles throughout the child’s life.
The other story is about a young women who is taken on a trip to an isolated and dangerous valley in the Icelandic mountains.
All three converge to provide a very dramatic ending to The Darkness.
Gregg Hurwitz’s writes on the cover of The Darkness ..” I dare you not to be shocked” and I do too !!
Final Thoughts
The bottom line – I really liked the book. I thought Hulda’s character the was both interesting and well developed. Additionally, I also know that I had some of the same feelings as I approached and moved into retirement. Now, I can’t wait to move onto The Island and The Mist
About Ragnar Jonasson
Ragnar Jonasson is author of the award winning and international bestselling Dark Iceland series.
His debut Snowblind, first in the Dark Iceland series, went to number one in the Amazon Kindle charts shortly after publication. The book was also a no. 1 Amazon Kindle bestseller in Australia. Snowblind has been a paperback bestseller in France.
Nightblind won the Dead Good Reader Award 2016 for Most Captivating Crime in Translation.
Snowblind was called a “classically crafted whodunit” by THE NEW YORK TIMES, and it was selected by The Independent as one of the best crime novels of 2015 in the UK.
