Following on from the latest Yrsa Sigurðardóttir novel, I thought I’d stay in Iceland and catch up with Ragnar Jónasson who I’ve been meaning to read for a while. His latest series of books are the Hidden Iceland trilogy, and The Darkness is the first of the three novels.
Hulda Hermannsdottir is approaching her retirement, and isn’t really sure what she’s going to do. She lives alone, her daughter and husband both having died years earlier. A friend in a rambling club has shown a little interest in her, but she’s disappointed that her career spluttered and others have long passed her by getting promotions in Reykjavik’s CID.
Suddenly, even her final retirement is upon her, a new younger guy being able to start in just a couple of weeks. Her cases are removed from her and she has nothing to do. She persuades her boss to let her look at one cold case before retirement finally arrives, and she re-opens a case of a Russian refugee who was found dead at the foot of some remote cliffs. The case had been called a suicide and swiftly closed.
Has she got enough time to get to the bottom of what really happened? What will her colleagues make of her reopening something they thought they’d already dealt with? And then there are her actions involving a hit and run that the book opens with.
As the book’s title implies, this is a darker tone of crime novel. We learn more about Hulda’s own circumstances; her frustrations and lack of willingness to work with others. But a sexist police environment is also there – slapdash work done to get cases closed.
This is a fine opening to a new trilogy, and it keeps you turning the pages until the gripping conclusion, about which I will say nothing.