Literature allows us to change times and places simply by turning the pages of a book. If you’ve always dreamed of exploring the wilds of Iceland, this novel recently published in France should please you. Combining police investigation and discovery of snowy and desert landscapes, this thriller is number 1 in Iceland and will soon occupy the top places in the rankings in France as well.
A novel written with four hands
The Icelandic author, Ragnar Jónasson sells the majority of its books in France. So when someone who is also an investment banker publishes a new work, thousands of our compatriots rush to bookstores to find out what he has in store for them. And this time again, his fans will not be disappointed, the Icelander has innovated since this time, he did not write alone, but in the company of the former Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir.
This novel, first published by La Martinière and now available in paperback, is an astonishing but successful association. Long-time friends of Ragnar Jónasson, Katrín Jakobsdóttir revealed the secrets of this collaboration in the columns of the newspaper West France. “We wrote chapters each‘one after the otherabout a time that we both knew well, was exciting and full of change.”
A thriller in the Far North
It therefore took four hands and two fertile minds to offer us this novel mixing news and politics. In Reykjavikon suit the adventures of a young journalist named Valur who decides to investigate an unresolved case dating back more than thirty years. A cold case therefore, but not because of local temperatures. Valur follows in the footsteps of Lará, 15 years old, employed as a servant by a rich couple on the very small hostile island of Viðey and whose disappearance remains a mystery.
Her employers, the last to have seen her alive, claim that the young girl left to try her luck in the capital by crossing the rough seas. The disappearance is therefore the heart of this novel which takes place in a unique political context, between the bicentenary of Iceland and the organization of the Reykjavik Summit in the middle of the Cold War. The fascinating investigation will shatter the lives of the young journalist and that of his sister.
photo credit: Éditions La Martinière Reykjavik, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Ragnar Jónasson
Reykjavik: a thriller not to be missed
So let yourself be taken on a retro investigation into Reykjavik in 1986, where modern technologies do not yet exist. No smartphones, no high-tech gadgets, only endearing and determined detectiveswho must rely on their intelligence and experience to solve the mystery surrounding Lará’s disappearance. Also immerse yourself in a snowy and desert Icelandic landscape, where the cold and isolation add to the tension.
This detective novel, number 1 in sales in Iceland in 2022, is a real cold case which will keep you in suspense until the end. And there is no shortage of laudatory comments from readers, as well as those from professionals. “This thriller immediately adopts the codes of the thriller and those of the Icelandic thriller in particular. The Icelandic Prime Minister and her fellow writer sign an Agatha Christie-style detective novel. A real Nordic change of scenery, a disturbing intrigue.” wrote the literary specialist of Figaro.
