The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula. Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose socialmedia presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. Ageing carpenter Tryggvi is an outsider, only tolerated because he’s the boyfriend of Petra’s aunt, but he’s struggling to avoid alcohol because he knows what happens when he drinks … Humble hotel employee, Irma, is excited to meet this rich and famous family and observe them at close quarters … perhaps too close… As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark. But is the real danger inside … within the family itself?
Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir studied for an MSc in globalisation in Norway before returning to Iceland to write her first novel. Combining writing with work as a stewardess and caring for her children, Eva finished her debut thriller The Creak on the Stairs, which was published in 2018. It became a bestseller in Iceland, going on to win the Blackbird Award. Published in English by Orenda Books in 2020, it became a digital number-one betseller in three countries, was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Awards in two categories and won the CWA John Creasey Dagger in 2021. Girls Who Lie, the second book in the Forbidden Iceland series was shortlisted for the Petrona Award and the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger, and Night Shadows followed suit. With over 200,000 copies sold in English alone, Eva has become one of Iceland’s – and crimefiction’s – most highly regarded authors. She lives in Reyjavik with her husband and three children.
My thoughts: family reunions never end well, all those very different people linked only by blood or marriage, in one place, in this case a remote Icelandic hotel, with lots of booze. Recipe for disaster. Secrets bubble up, people are revealed to be more something other than they seem, old resentments flourish and nobody has a nice time. Except maybe the oblivious patriarch, although the heartburn and indigestion he’s due won’t be pleasant.
There’s a member of hotel staff with a secret connection to the family, a years old secret comes to light, an unhappy teenager, a miserable mother who won’t stop picking on her adult daughter. You can tell they don’t have these gatherings too often, better if they don’t speak at all in some cases.
Then there’s the dead body, the possibly missing girl and the police, summoned to the hotel to investigate. With all the suspects handily in one place, it shouldn’t take them long to sort out.
Moving back and forth between the police investigation and the weekend that proceeded it, we get a long hard look at the family, at their messy relationships, resentments and all the awkward moments you could want, as long as they’re not your relatives.
As a prequel to the Arkanes set Forbidden Iceland series, it’s only in the final moments the connection is made, this is much more about the wealthy Snæberg family and their chaos than it is about the police or the town. It works quite happily as a standalone, although I do recommend the rest of the series too.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 