Blog Tour: Dead Sweet – Katrin Júlíusdóttir, translated by Quentin Bates

When a celebrated government official is found dead after his surprise birthday party, a young police officer uncovers a terrifying world of financial crime, sinister cults and disturbing secret lives. Icelandic politician KatrÍn JÚlÍusdÓttir’s award-winning, breathtaking debut, and first in a chilling series.

When Óttar Karlsson, a wealthy and respected government official and businessman, is found murdered, after failing to turn up at his own surprise birthday party, the police are at a loss. It isn’t until young police officer SigurdÍs finds a well-hidden safe in his impersonal luxury apartment that clues start emerging.

As Óttar’s shady business dealings become clear, a second, unexpected line of enquiry emerges, when SigurdÍs finds a US phone number in the safe, along with papers showing regular money transfers to an American account. Following the trail to Minnesota, trauma rooted in SigurdÍs’s own childhood threatens to resurface and the investigation strikes chillingly close to home…

Atmospheric, deeply unsettling and full of breakneck twists and turns, Dead Sweet is a startling debut thriller that uncovers a terrifying world of financial crime, sinister cults and disturbing secret lives, and kicks off an addictive, mind-blowing new series.

KatrÍn received the Blackbird Award, an Icelandic crime-writing prize, for her first novel, Dead Sweet. Her debut novel was reviewed well by critics and hit the best-selling lists in the first weeks after publication. KatrÍn has a political background and was a member of Parliament from 2003 until 2016. Before she was elected to Parliament, KatrÍn was an advisor and project manager at a tech company and a senior buyer and CEO in the retail sector, as well as the Managing Director of a student union during her uni years.

Translator – Quentin Bates escaped English suburbia as a teenager, jumping at the chance of a gap year working in Iceland. He is the author of a series of crime novels set in present-day Iceland (Frozen Out, Cold Steal, Chilled to the Bone, Winterlude, Cold Comfort and Thin Ice which have been published worldwide. He has translated all of Ragnar JÓnasson’s Dark Iceland series.

My thoughts: this was really good, but also really awful because when the truth comes out about the victim, Óttar, he turns out to have been one bad man and I didn’t really want the cops to find his killer, because weirdly I felt bad for them – not him!

SigurdÍs is a really good investigator, even if she does go off on her own – she just wants to prove to her bosses that she’s a great cop and not keep getting left out of investigations or given paperwork to shuffle.

I really hope this grows into a series as I was completely hooked, the writing (and Quentin’s brilliant translation work) was so gripping and compelling, even as I realised, oh no, he’s guilty of really gross and horrible things, I wanted to keep reading.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.