Tag: literature in translation

Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.

At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until the chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?

Once again, the team at West Iceland CID have to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light. And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.

Tense, twisty and shocking, Boys Who Hurt is the next, addictive installment in the award-winning Forbidden Iceland series, as dark events from the past endanger everything…

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study for an MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. After moving back home having completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel. Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a short story contest in Iceland.

Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first novel. The book went on to win the Blackbird Award and became an Icelandic bestseller. Eva now lives with her husband and three children in ReykjavÍk.

Victoria Cribb studied and worked in Iceland for many years. She has translated more than 25 novels from the Icelandic and, in 2017, she received the OrðstÍr honourary translation award for services to Icelandic literature.

My thoughts: returning to Iceland’s dark side as Elma returns to work after maternity leave, with a man’s body in a holiday cottage, a violent murder that at first seems to make no sense. The victim doesn’t have any enemies, or close friends. His mother happens to be Elma’s rather odd neighbour, and stuck on paternity leave Sævar has been watching her, curious about her behaviour.

A box found in the attic of Elma’s old place, that has moved with them, contains a diary from the 90s, and possibly an answer to Elma’s case.

I really like this series, the cases have been so clever and twisty  – and this is no different. Elma’s case is all about secrets and a terrible tragedy from years before, some people never forget and never forgive. The writing is so good, I was totally gripped and couldn’t put it down.

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

To celebrate the paperback release of Thirty Days of Darkness, I’m re-sharing my review from last year’s hardback tour. Read on for more info and to see what I thought the first time I read this book.

It’s also now available in Sainsbury’s  – so pop a copy in your trolley!

Buy online

A snobbish Danish literary author is challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days, travelling to a small village in Iceland for inspiration, and then a body appears … an atmospheric, darkly funny, twisty debut thriller, first in an addictive new series.

Copenhagen author Hannah is the darling of the literary community and her novels have achieved massive critical acclaim. But nobody actually reads them, and frustrated by writer`s block, Hannah has the feeling that she`s doing something wrong.
When she expresses her contempt for genre fiction, Hanna is publicly challenged to write a crime novel in thirty days. Scared that she will lose face, she accepts, and her editor sends her to HÚ safjÖ ð ur – a quiet, tight-knit village in Iceland, filled with colourful local characters – for inspiration.
But two days after her arrival, the body of a fisherman´ s young son is pulled from the water … and what begins as a search for plot material quickly turns into a messy and dangerous investigation that threatens to uncover secrets that put everything at risk … including Hannah…
Atmospheric, dramatic and full of nerve-jangling twists and turns, Thirty Days of Darkness is a darkly funny, unsettling debut Nordic Noir thriller that marks the start of a breath-taking new series.

Jenny Lund Madsen is one of Denmark’s most acclaimed scriptwriters (including the international hits Rita and Follow the Money) and is known as an advocate for better representation for sexual and ethnic minorities in Danish TV and film. She recently made her debut as a playwright with the critically acclaimed Audition (Aarhus Teater) and her debut literary thriller, Thirty Days of Darkness, first in an addictive new series, won the Harald Mogensen Prize for Best Danish Crime Novel of the year and was shortlisted for the coveted Glass Key Award.

My thoughts: come with me to an Icelandic village in the middle of nowhere, in winter, where writer Hannah is attempting to write a crime novel in 30 days to win a bet. When there’s a murder, which she gets involved in and puts her safety at risk. She doesn’t speak the language, forcing others to have to speak English or Danish, she doesn’t know the people, but she’s pretty sure she can catch the killer. As you do.

I found Hannah a bit grating, she pushes her way into people’s lives and business with little regard for their feelings and clearly thinks very highly of herself. Her career is stalling as not many people seem that keen on her literary fiction – preferring crime writers like her nemesis Jørn. Which is why she boasts she can write a whole crime novel in a month. This tickled me, I do love it when writers poke fun at the industry and their own genre.

Especially when the book is so good, like this one. Jenny Lund Madsen has written a cracking crime thriller, with all the good ingredients – remote location, nosey outsider, secrets that have been buried for years, lots of possible suspects, a conflicted community, a lone policeman, and winter closing in. Iceland’s unique geography and the fact that the sun isn’t in evidence for much of the winter adds to the sinister atmosphere – snow bound crimes are always a bit more macabre than sunny ones. The winter darkness adds to the sense of claustrophobia and paranoia, someone here is a killer. They can’t leave, but neither can anyone else.

Full of suspense, intrigue and horror, this dark and twisted tale of murder and tragedy is absolutely perfect for a dark and stormy night’s reading. Or not, if you don’t want to stay up all night!

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

When neatly packed male body parts wash up by the River Elbe, Hamburg
State Prosecutor Chastity Riley and her colleagues begin a perplexing
investigation.

As the murdered men are identified, it becomes clear that they all had a history
of abuse towards women, leading Riley to wonder if it would actually be in
society’s best interests to catch the killers.
But when her best friend Carla is attacked, and the police show little interest in
tracking down the offender, Chastity takes matters into her own hands and as a
link between the two cases emerges, horrifying revelations threaten Chastity’s
own moral compass … and put everything at risk.

The award-winning, critically acclaimed Chastity Riley series returns with a slick,
hard-boiled, darkly funny thriller that tackles issues of violence and the
difference between law and justice with devastating insight, and an ending you
will never see coming…

Simone Buchholz was born in Hanau in 1972. At university, she studied
Philosophy and Literature, worked as a waitress and a columnist, and trained to
be a journalist at the prestigious Henri-Nannen-School in Hamburg.

In 2016, Simone Buchholz was awarded the Crime Cologne Award as well as runner-up in the German Crime Fiction Prize for Blue Night, which was number one on the KrimiZEIT Best of Crime List for months. The critically acclaimed Beton Rouge, Mexico Street, Hotel Cartagena and River Clyde all followed in the Chastity Riley series. Hotel Cartagena won the CWA Crime in Translation Dagger in 2022. The
Acapulco (2023) marked the beginning of the Chastity Reloaded series, with The
Kitchen out in 2024.

She lives in Sankt Pauli, in the heart of Hamburg, with her husband and son.

My thoughts: Chastity is prepping a case for court when she gets a call about body parts being found all neatly packaged up, just the hands, feet and head. It’s weird and when a second package is found, the team think they might be looking for a serial killer.

At the same time Carla, Chastity’s best friend, is the victim of a horrific assault which leaves her reeling, and Chastity at a loss as to how to help, the police aren’t getting far with their investigation and Carla doesn’t want to talk about it.

So Chastity focuses on the case, trying to find the link between the victims, and perhaps lead to the killer. After meeting a new friend of Carla and spending an evening at a fancy restaurant, she’s putting the dots together, in a really quite gross solution that’s pretty shocking too.

Chastity is still pretty bad at the personal life stuff, keeping people at arms length, even when she knows deep down that she needs them. I still really like her, even though she is deeply dysfunctional and a bit messed up.

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