I just couldn’t seem to get into this book. I love a cold case and a unique setting like Iceland and I’ve enjoyed Ragnar’s books on the last, but something about Reykjavik just drug for me. Maybe it was all the names I couldn’t pronounce or keep track of, but it felt slow and discombobulated. The twist was OK and the overall story was well-done from the viewpoint of a journalist 30yrs after a girl goes missing, but overall I just wasn’t hooked at all.

Thirty years has gone by, and a nation is still riveted to the story of a missing 15 year old girl. A reporter, in 1986, starts poking around, and unearths new clues to what truly happened on the island Veday. Reykjavik, a nordic noir, details the decades since the childs disappearance and the cop who's life has never quite been the same.

It's a slow-burn page turner with gasp worthy revelations. A truly crafty mystery.

Thank you Minotaur Books for the complimentary copy.

I loved the investigation of a decades old case, as well as the timeline in the 80s. The 80s are one of my favorite decades, and to see it from an international point of view was intriguing. I also loved the descriptions of Iceland and Reykjavík and Videy, it made me want to go there as soon as possible. I was surprised and pleased by the ending. I cannot wait to see if these authors do another collaboration so I can read them again.

This isn’t the first book I’ve read set in Iceland and translated from Icelandic, but it is by far the best I’ve read. Reykjavík has also introduced me to a new genre, Icelandic Noir. I want more, especially if they are all written like this!

Reykjavík is a fast-paced, intriguing mystery. When I say this is fast-paced, I don’t mean you never have that chance to breathe. There are moments, much like a roller coaster ride, when things slow down, and you can process what you’re reading.

There is a large cast of characters, but it is easy to keep them sorted, as they all have their own personalities. While you see the culprit multiple times throughout the story, I doubt you will be able to figure out who it is. I know it caught me by surprise.

Also, I want to give some serious love to the translator, Victoria Cribb. There are some times that the story is literally lost in translation. That did not happen with Reykjavík. The only issue I had with the book was all of the names in Icelandic. But guess what, that’s my problem! Why? Because I am unfamiliar with how to pronounce the words correctly, and I’m sure that other languages have similar issues when reading works translated from English.

If you can’t tell, I’m trying to show love for the book without spoiling anything! If you love reading mysteries, I think you understand what I mean.

Do you love reading mysteries? Especially when the secret is three decades old? What about books set in Iceland? Or historical fiction? Are you looking for a new genre to read? If you say yes to even one of these questions, you must read Reykjavík!

I enjoy stories that are translated so that other countries can share in an author's talented writing. St. Martin's Press has released Reykjavik: A Crime Story by Ragnar Johansson and Katrina Jakobsdottir, translated by Victoria Cribb in English, September 2023. I was given a copy from the publisher through NetGalley and this is my own personal opinion about the book.
The translation is very well done, and the story moved along smoothly. I understand seeing characters with the dottir and son endings. My family knew a Carlson decades ago and had it explained to us if they had kept the tradition, his son's last name would have been Fredrickson.
I found this story to be intriguing. There is a sadness that runs through the book which is told through the decades starting in 1956 when a fifteen-year-old girl, Lara, goes missing from the Videy island estate of a couple that she worked for as a maid. A young law officer is assigned the case but meets roadblocks from higher ups during his investigation. 1986, Valur Robertsson, a reporter, diligently searches into the story to write a series in the days leading to the anniversary of the town and the date the girl went missing. Someone is definitely not happy with the stirring up of 'old news'. Sunna, his sister, becomes deeply immersed in the mystery too.
The author gives a look into the lives of the people involved. He also shows the world-wide and decades long divide between those who look down on others and the need for power and wealth versus an 'ordinary' person who just want to have a good life. It's a good story, there us sadness and there is hope.
Translations offer words, particularly places, that are hard to pronounce which can interrupt reading flow, but this has a good addition with name pronunciations added.

Reykajavik is a book most readers may have a hard time grasping. There are a lot of characters, Icelandic terms and names, and hard to follow because of this. I know some terms personally and names with how it’s pronounced but still had a hard time following everything. The story has potential, especially for readers familiar with Icelandic terminology.

To be honest when I first opened the book I found the long list of characters to be a little intimidating. However, the story quickly engaged my interest and the names were not daunting at all. Reykjavik is a story of a 30 year dissapearance of a young girl named Lara. I don’t want to give too much away but thought the book was interesting, suspenseful and fast paced.

3.5 stars

I don’t know why but I love mystery set and snowy countries in Reykjavík did not disappoint. When a 15-year-old goes missing it makes news all over the country there were no clues she was the summer maid for Otter and Olive a barrister in Iceland in 1956 and when she didn’t call her mom on their Sunday phone call the mom got worried she was told her daughter quit her job and as far as the couple knew she left the island. For the heartbroken mom of Laura this didn’t sound like her daughter at all she was a girl who saw things to the end a hard worker and a team who was close to her parents Christian was the first detective sent to the island to investigate for years he would be left wondering what happened to Laura? Thanks to a reporter and the detectives on Hardwork Iceland would find out what happened to their missing daughter in the answers would shock everyone. This book was so so good! As I said I love books set in snowy countries and head high hopes for Reykjavík and there is always so much fun when you read a book that totally satisfies and this one does love Detective Christian I thought his tenacity seemed authentic and he was just an all-around likable character this was a great book and one I highly recommend for any mystery fan . If you love a well put together mystery that reads like True Crime you definitely love Reykjavík it’s a little bit longer than most mysteries but so worth it I absolutely loved it! I want to think Saint Martin’s press Ann Net Galley for another great arc please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

An unsolved disappearance from an island off the coast of Iceland in 1956 remains unsolved in 1966, 1976, and now 1986. As a Jo Nesbo fan, I was expecting more of a hardcore Nordic noir, but what I found was a cozier cold-case mystery. That's not a bad thing, just different, and I think this book would be a good entry into the genre for readers who prefer their crime a little more off-scene ala Agatha Christie. With the AC references throughout, I think that is precisely what the authors were going for. What I also liked was viewing 1986 (that I remember fondly from childhood) through the lens of Icelanders... Top Gun, Madonna, Reagan and Gorby, shoulder-padded pastel power suits, etc. It was all in there and added a unique flash of color to the frozen gray background. Well done! I will definitely look to read more from these authors!

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

30-Year-Old Missing Person Case That Needed Scratching

Officer Kristján Kristjánsson visits Videy Island just off Reykjavík to interview Óttar and Ólöf Blöndal concerning their missing summer hire, Lára Marteinsdóttir. Her parents called them about her when she failed to call her. They were told that she had said she needed to leave immediately. Since she did not show up at her parents, they called the police. The Blöndals confirmed that story to Kristjánsson. Óttar, a retired lawyer, still has some political pull and seemed unhappy that the officer came out to the island when all of this could be done over the phone. Kristjánsson receives a call from his boss's boss berating him. He finishes with the Blöndals and leaves to look around the island. He did not find anything. He also learns that no one saw her leave on a boat. The timeline shifts 10 years. Now, Detective Kristjánsson reminisces about the unsolved case. He feels that the case had not received the attention that it should. The timeline shifts another 10 years. Kristjánsson still believes that he was swayed by his superiors not to push the investigation to involve important people associated with it. The novel proceeds after another 10 years. Now, on the 30-year of the disappearance, a reporter, Valur Róbertsson, is going to write a four-article series in a weekly tabloid. From this start, a conundrum of an investigative reporter procedural unfolds.

The structure of this novel is the first time I have seen it. There is only one main thread, but it is presented in three phases. The main storyline starts as a police procedural, but it's not a very effective one. The next two phases are narrated by investigative reporters. My favorite genre is police procedurals that CSI aspects do not play a significant role. This genre relies on interviews, reviewing what was learned, and what needs to be investigated next. This is an iterative possess that includes many roadblocks, twists, turns, and dead ends. This is exactly what investigative reporters do. That is exactly what happens in this novel, and I was elated. As the first reporter tried to unravel this 30-year-old cold case, my interest was captured immediately. I had a hard time putting it down until I finished reading.

The background on the two investigative reporters is quite extensive. It is provided by their thoughts and logic as well as their interactions with their editor, friends, family, and subjects of their investigation. As a result, they were well developed and natural characters to me. I especially enjoyed both of their perseverance to solve this cold case.

No one should find anything objectionable with this novel. There are not any intimate scenes. I found only five mildly rude words. Also, there are four British rude words that are uniquely British. I find it strange that an Icelandic person would use them. I chalk this up to a British translator targeting a British audience. The few violent scenes are described as they happen but are not disturbing for me. Lastly, this is a standalone novel, so there are not any issues something unexplained from a previous novel.

I did not find anything that bothered me in this novel, but I can see that the long chapters that consist of the police procedural part of this novel may cause some readers to lose interest. Some may think the same for the investigative report part also. Please be persistent. If you enjoy traditional police procedurals, then this novel is for you. There were not any loose ends that were not tied up by the end, and this end I liked very much.

I have read five previous novels by this author and have purchased four others waiting to be read. This novel reinforced my putting him in my Must-Read category. I recommend reading this novel. I rate this novel with five stars.

I received a free prepublication e-book version of this novel through NetGalley from Minotaur Books. My review is based solely on my own reading experience of this book. I wish to thank Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read and review this novel early.

In 1956, a teenage girl disappeared from a small island just off the coast of Reykjavik, and the mystery remained unsolved. Detective Kristjan pursued the very few clues he had, but found no answers and had to leave the case open, but never forgot about Lara's disappearance. The opening chapter in Part One takes place just after Lara disappeared, the second chapter is ten years later, with Kristjan reflecting on the case after a newspaper runs a story on it. The third chapter is twenty years later, in 1976, with another news story focusing on the old mystery. Then the story jumps ahead to 1986, and an enterprising young journalist named Valur who is working on yet another anniversary story on Lara's disappearance. He follows every lead and tries to interview the people connected to the case in any way, and makes enough progress that he believes he may be able to solve the mystery. But something seems off . . . and then an accident takes Valur's life . . . or was it an accident?

Valur's sister Sunna had been his confidant, and he had loaned her his notebook before his death, hoping for her insight on the leads he'd gathered. Sunna realizes that Valur must have been close to the truth, and that he may have been murdered because of it. She decides she will finish the story for the paper herself and sets out to talk to everyone mentioned in his notes. With help from Valur's girlfriend, Sunna untangles the threads of the mysterious messages he'd received and eventually discovers what happened to Lara and why the crime had gone undetected for thirty years.

This is the first Nordic Noir title I've read, and I was pleasantly surprised that although the overall atmosphere of the story evokes sadness and regret, it was not dark or deeply disturbing. The pacing is relatively slow, with characters thinking, reflecting, remembering, and talking through the clues and possibilities rather than actively chasing them down. The mystery is a perplexing one, and very well thought out, so as Valur and then Sunna start peeling back the layers on the cold case, the reader is able to piece things together along with them until the final resolution, which holds a bit of a twist. I liked the character arc for Sunna, as she moved into the lead character role and found purpose and meaning after her own tragedy.

This felt like a nice slow introduction to fall read. This is a mystery that had stumped fictional police for 30 years and the writing takes a sort of rambling circular path. There are 3 parts with 3 sequential narrators and each is trying to solve the mystery and so there is a lot to overlap as the next person has to backtrack a bit. This was a bit frustrating as a reader, but possibly was used as a device to show how frustrated all of Iceland was about this impossible case. I just wish that this was a bit slower and the characters were a little more vibrant (especially the "suspects") to make this a little more of a page turner. I did appreciate the time period this was written, because there are so many technologies that would maybe make this easier to investigate in modern times and made it harder in the time period this is set.

3.5 rounded because, well, the author IS the Prime Minister!

I've never read of Jonasson's books, which is odd since I truly am a fan of Nordic Noir. I love them for the atmosphere and what better way to escape the summer heat than to read a book where it is really really cold? The mystery in this story was a good one, a girl goes missing and on the 30th anniversary some new leads are uncovered, but I would have loved a bit more character development, and a lot more of the dark atmosphere I was expecting. This book felt like it could have taken place anywhere; the setting did not feel like it was a character in the story. But overall it was entertaining and engaging.

Reykjavík, Ragnar Jonasson & Katrin Jakobsdottir

Twin Peaks but make it Nordic Noir!

Nordic Noir’s beloved author Ragnar and Iceland’s Prime Minister team up in this epic story of a missing girl and her unsolved case spanning 3 decades.

Woven throughout the story are elements of political and systematic privileges that aid in keeping one of Iceland’s most prolific cases unsolved despite multiple attempts to uncover what happened to Lara. When a journalist gets too close to uncovering the truth, someone will stop at nothing to ensure they remain quiet.

I enjoyed this meandering cat and mouse thriller which had all the elements of a modernized Agatha Christie tale, alongside the retro timeline of the 1980’s which were incredibly impactful to me growing up. I appreciated the nod the infamous meeting with Regan and Gorbachev. I also liked the Easter egg of a snip it of Ragnar’s own backstory as a translator for Agatha Christie.

Readers who like thrillers with a slower pace to allow for added historical & political fiction, will enjoy Reykjavík.

Thank you to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for my advanced copy.

This story is told in third person and follows several characters primarily Valur, an investigative reporter and his sister, Sunna, a student studying literature who gets pulled into the case of the missing Lara by her brother’s investigation. The book is told in two parts based on a dual timeline from 1956 as Kristjan investigates the disappearance of Lara and picks up in 1986 during Valur’s determination to finally solve this cold case. This is my third book by Jonasson and first by Jakobsdottir. It’s more of a mystery like Snowblind than the thriller Outside, and I enjoyed it more than the thriller but probably not more than the Dark Iceland series, which I need to finish.

There were a lot of characters in this one and the list at the front of the novel was very helpful as I read along, referring to the bookmark I placed there often. For those of you that are at a loss by all of the names, there’s also a pronunciation guide at the end of the book for the characters and I wish I had noticed that before I reached the end because I was searching pronunciations online as each character was introduced.

I found the beginning to be a little slow, but there was a twist in the middle that I didn’t see coming and at first it annoyed me because it was one of the reasons that I picked the book up, however it drew me even more into the story and I didn’t put it down until I was finished. It was a solid cold case mystery and though I suspected parts of it, the end was a revelation.

Thank you to Netgalley and Minotaur Books for a copy provided for an honest review.

A thriller thar is not to be missed! Lara foes to a small town as a young girl to work in service. Her boss is a lead barrister in the town. She leaves and disappears. The story follows the first cop to look for her and years later a reporter decides to reopen the case as a lead story in his paper. Completely immersive and not to be missed.

Reykjavik is co-written by Ragnar Jonasson and Iceland's Prime Minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir. It is an intriguing mystery about a missing teenager. The story begins in 1956 when fifteen-year-old Lara disappears while working for a couple on a remote island near Reykjavik  The detective assigned to the case hates it when the case goes cold and it remains unsolved. Thirty years later, a journalist named Valur Robertsson begins looking for new clues to try to locate Lara.

The book starts out a bit slow. There are a lot of characters, but the list at the beginning of the book is helpful. However, once the story gets going, it becomes tense and suspenseful. There are new developments when Valur's sister and girlfriend also begin researching the case, and I was shocked when all was revealed. I've read only one prior book about Jonasson and found it to be too dark and bleak, but this well-written, well-researched mystery was a pleasure to read. I would rate the book 4.5 stars.

I received an advance copy of the ebook from NetGalley and Minotaur at no cost, but my review is voluntary and unbiased.

This was a bit of a slow start, but it got better once I got into the book. I prefer his books via audio, personally. I definitely did not see the twist coming at the end, what a nefarious bastard! But really all of them were terrible people for keeping the secret and staying silent.

Thank you so much to the publisher for my #gifted eARC in exchange for an honest review.


Second pic for synopsis ➡️➡️


𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬:
I am a huge fan of Jónasson and his previous books, so I was really excited to read this one. Unfortunately, it lacked the suspense for me and was way too slow moving. I wanted so much more. This one lacked any sort of character development, excitement, suspense, and twists. It seemed to lack any sort of coherency as there were so many characters to keep track of and the storyline seemed to jump all over the place, it left me feeling confused at times. Another thing that this one lacked in comparison to Jónasson’s previous books is the atmospheric feeling and setting that I love and usually look forward to when reading his books. Overall, it was an okay story about a cold case, but again…it lacked so much and left me feeling disappointed. I will definitely continue to read Jónasson’s future books, but I may steer clear of this author duo’s future work.

𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞?
I think that many will struggle to get through this one, and to be honest-I cannot recommend it. Loved his previous books, but this one just did absolutely nothing for me.

𝐌𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠:
⭐️⭐️💫2.5/5

I love Ragnar Jonasson’s way of telling a story. Joined by a fierce female politician, the Prime Minister is Iceland, Katrin Jakobsdottir, Reykjavik is even more intense.

A little bit historical fiction and a whole lot of suspense, Reykjavik envisions what might have happened in the real-life disappearance of a teenager in 1950s Iceland. The first half of the book is a slow burn. There’s a lot of laying the groundwork of the story and introducing characters. Part 2 is where the book picks up pace and where I got hooked. I hope this is the start of a new series, because I feel that Sunna is a fantastic character with a lot more to say.