The old sanatorium may have stopped welcoming tuberculosis patients for a long time, under the eyes of Tinna, a nurse employed in the only department still open, dedicated to research and development of new processes, there is still none left. less sinister. And the discovery she makes, when taking her post that morning, will not help matters: her colleague, Ysra, has been brutally murdered. Two of his fingers were even severed and placed near his amputated hand. And when the head doctor is found dead, at the foot of the building, from the top of which he seems to have thrown himself, everything suggests that he killed his colleague before ending his life. Justice has been done and the investigation resolved. However, 30 years later, Helgi, a young criminologist, looks into the case for the purposes of his thesis. And the murders resume among the suspects from 1983…
Icelandic Ragnar Jónasson has created a masterful new thriller. A triple temporality (1950, 1983, 2012) and chapters alternating the points of view of the various protagonists allow it to gradually reveal its plot. Like Agatha Christie, of whom he is a great fan and translated several novels before starting to write himself, he brilliantly handles the plot behind closed doors, all in a perfectly Hitchcockian setting. Readers will also enjoy finding Hulda, the heroine of the trilogy la Dame de Reykjavíkat the time of retirement, pushed out by her superior.
Death in whiteRagnar Jónasson, La Martinière, 416 pages, €22
France
Books
