REYKJAVIK: A CRIME STORY - Ragnar Jonasson and Katrin Jakobsdottir


In 1956 Iceland, fourteen year old Lara seeks to expand her horizons and goes off to spend the summer on the island of Vidney, just off of Reykjavik, working as an all-around maid/housekeeper for a young couple. But in August of that year, Lara has gone missing without a single trace of evidence. Did she continue to seek adventure, moving on without telling anyone, or did something happen to her? Lara is Iceland's most infamous unsolved crime - if, in fact, there was a crime.

Now, in 1986, Iceland celebrates it's 200th anniversary but journalist Valur Robertsson is more interested in the 30-year-old story of Lara's disappearance than he is in the stodgy history of the country. He convinces his newspaper editor to let him investigate the story, finding that some people are a little more prone to opening up given the distance of time now. But as Valur gets close to making a revelation, he is suspiciously killed in a freak 'accident'.  Valur's sister, Sunna, picks up where Valur left off, doing her own investigation, and makes some very surprising discoveries.

Despite the ''deaths involved in the story (one a cold case of disappearance and the other unclear as to whether accidental or intentional), this isn't nearly as dark as I was expecting it to be.  I thought this might be much more 'Nordic Noir' or 'Icelandic Noir' but it's much less noir and more classic mystery that happens to be set in Iceland.

There's an oddness to this story which has me wondering about how the writing partnership worked.  In the first portion of the book we're squarely with Valur and his investigation and his pressing some people to give up more information, including the police officer Kristján Kristjánsson for whom the cold case has been a haunting reminder of unfinished business. But then quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the story becomes Sunna's, who picks up pretty much where her brother's left off.  

There's no real need or reason for this, unless Valur's death becomes part of the equation. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.  It definitely does not come into play in such a way as to change up the POV so suddenly.

Despite her lack of training (not nearly as thorough as her brother's), Sunna make some real headway and moves headlong to the conclusion, which comes rather abruptly (which seems an odd thing to say since the entire book is about finding out what happened).  

For the most part, I enjoyed the read.  It was smooth language (attributed mostly to the translator?) and the story was quite direct.  Too direct.  I was disappointed that being a more conventional mystery there weren't any real red herrings or more challenges to Valur and Sunna's investigation.  it was mostly digging up old pieces of the disappearance puzzle and putting them together.  And the death of Valur, the only possible red herring here, just didn't go anywhere and was never pursued.

Looking for a good book? Reykjavik: A Crime Story is a whodunnit mystery set in Iceland in the 1950's and then again in the 1980's. It's nice writing but the story lacks a good bite.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars

* * * * * *

Reykjavík: A Crime Story

authors: Ragnar Jónasson, Katrín Jakobsdóttir

translator: Victoria Cribb

publisher: Michael Joseph/Minotaur

ISBN: 9780241625996

hardcover, 384 pages

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