Rupture by Ragnar Jonasson #BlogTour @OrendaBooks

I am absolutely thrilled to be taking part today in the blog tour for Rupture which is the fourth Dark Iceland book from Ragnar Jonasson. A huge thank you to Karen Sullivan for inviting me!

About this book…

1955. Two young couples move to the uninhabited, isolated fjord of Hedinsfjörður. Their stay ends abruptly when one of the women meets her death in mysterious circumstances. The case is never solved. Fifty years later an old photograph comes to light, and it becomes clear that the couples may not have been alone on the fjord after all…
In nearby Siglufjörður, young policeman Ari Thór tries to piece together what really happened that fateful night, in a town where no one wants to know, where secrets are a way of life. He’s assisted by Ísrún, a news reporter in Reykjavik, who is investigating an increasingly chilling case of her own. Things take a sinister turn when a child goes missing in broad daylight. With a stalker on the loose, and the town of Siglufjörður in quarantine, the past might just come back to haunt them.

My review…

Over Christmas there was a seasonal Kindle sale going on over at Amazon. Normally, I back away from that one click button as it makes book buying a bit too easy at times! But then I noticed that the first three books in this series had been reduced to 99p each! I have only recently allowed myself to be seduced by Scandinavian crime so that price it was a risk I was prepared to take. And as buying all three would cost me less than a chai latte and an almond croissant (and be much better for my blood sugar levels as well!) I hit those one click buttons. My Christmas then became a complete Icelandic crime fest as I read the whole series within the week between Christmas and New Year…and LOVED IT!

So I couldn’t wait to get stuck into Rupture, the fourth in the series to be translated into English, and thankfully the standard of writing and plotting has not dropped from the high expectations set in the first book, Snowblind. We are once again in the company of journalist Isrun, whom we also met in Blackout, and who is following up on a case of her own while Ari Thor is investigating a cold case from 1955 on behalf of a woman’s nephew, who thinks his aunt was murdered. On top of all this, the town is in quarantine due to a virus that is proving fatal so leaving to gather more information is impossible, or is it?

I just love the delicately plotted storytelling in this series. It’s like the author is painting a winters landscape for us as he enriches the plot, slowly building up the layers, giving it depth and shadows which don’t seem to come together or make sense until you stand back to appreciate the whole picture. It’s a joy to read such an enchanting, atmospheric crime mystery featuring well rounded characters that are greeted like old friends and grip the reader immediately with their lives and careers. I’m fascinated by those inhabitants, living in their beautiful Icelandic setting which has almost become a character in its own right as it entwins itself around the crimes leaving the reader with serious goosebumps. The last few pages of Rupture leave us warmed up nicely for the next addition to the series and made me feel much better about not spotting the twists and turns that came before it!

Although Rupture is the most recent of the series it can still be read as a standalone novel and if you love it then you can always treat yourself to the rest, knowing that they are all highly addictive, quality crime dramas. And they are so seamlessly translated you will forget that they were ever written in anything other than English to being with! If Agatha Christie were alive today I know she would be a huge supporter of this enthralling series and quite rightly so!

Huge thanks to Orenda Books for my review copy of Rupture.

Rupture (Dark Iceland) is available to purchase from Amazon UK here.

 

Meet the author…

Ragnar Jonasson (www.ragnarjonasson.com) is the Icelandic writer of the Dark Iceland crime series set in Northern Iceland. Snowblind (2015) is the first book in the Dark Iceland series. Ragnar was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, and works as a lawyer in Reykjavik. He is also a teacher at Reykjavik University Law School and has previously worked on radio and television, including as a TV news reporter for the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service. Before embarking on a writing career, Ragnar translated fourteen of Agatha Christie novels into Icelandic. Ragnar is the co-founder of the Reykjavik international crime writing festival Iceland Noir, and has appeard on panels at Crimefest in Bristol, Left Coast Crime in the USA, Bloody Scotland in Stirling and Iceland Noir in Iceland. Ragnar’s short story Death of a Sunflower was published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine January 2014 issue, the first story in the magazine by an Icelandic author. His second Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine story, A Letter to Santa, was published in the January 2015 issue. Ragnar’s short story Party of Two was published in the Crime Writers’ Association 2014 anthology Guilty Parties, edited by Martin Edwards. Ragnar lives in Reykjavik with his wife and daughters.