Many thanks to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for my spot on this Blog Tour.

This book blew me away. What I thought would be a slow-moving difficult to understand murder mystery was not so AT ALL. Author Eva Björg Ægisdóttir’s writing was completely different. There was a depth in her words. Her scenes had pause like they were allowing me to absorb the story and the lives of the life in Akranes, Iceland.

It was a murder mystery, a police procedural with Elma at the helm along with the others in the team, where they investigated the murder of a young woman near the lighthouse. The dynamism of the team was well expressed in the entire story.

But that was not all. It was a panorama of scenes put together to capture the stark vividness of Iceland. The descriptions of the locales, the people unfurled like a movie, inviting me to immerse myself in their culture.

The story gave me the victim’s past along with the secret and events she had undergone. It showed me the lines of investigation, the leads followed. But it also gave me the backstory of the characters allowing me to understand their lives.

The story was intriguing, with past and present interweaved, giving me glimpses as well as hiding so many things from me. Each step, each chapter was well plotted, a master strategist was this author. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were scattered carefully. After a point, I didn’t want to solve the murder but just luxuriate in the nuances of the story.

Suspense was calmly threaded into the plot which added one dollop of excitement with each chapter. The rush of it came right at the end. There was silence in the book but a silence which screamed its story out loud. Something so different, something so brilliant, the beginning of a wonderful series.

I received a free ARC from the publisher as a giveaway, and this is my journey into its pages, straight from the heart!! STRICTLY HONEST AND UNBIASED.

All my reviews can be read here

When a body of a woman is discovered at a lighthouse in the Icelandic town of Akranes, it soon becomes clear that she’s no stranger to the area.

Chief Investigating Officer Elma, who has returned to Akranes following a failed relationship, and her collegues Sævar and Hörður, commence an uneasy investigation, which uncovers a shocking secret in the dead woman’s past that continues to reverberate in the present day …

But as Elma and her team make a series of discoveries, they bring to light a host of long-hidden crimes that shake the entire community. Sifting through the rubble of the townspeople’s shattered memories, they have to dodge increasingly serious threats, and find justice … before it’s too late.

Publication Date: March 2020