Title: Whiteout
Author: Ragnar Jonasson
Series: Dark Iceland, #5
Published: January 2020, Orenda Books
Format: Paperback, 224 pages
Source: Personal copy
Summary:
Two days before Christmas, a young woman is found dead beneath the cliffs of the deserted village of Kalfshamarvik.
Did
she jump, or did something more sinister take place beneath the
lighthouse and the abandoned old house on the remote rocky outcrop? With
winter closing in and the snow falling relentlessly, Ari Thor Arason
discovers that the victim’s mother and young sister also lost their
lives in this same spot, twenty-five years earlier.
As the dark
history and its secrets of the village are unveiled, and the death toll
begins to rise, the Siglufjordur detectives must race against the clock
to find the killer, before another tragedy takes place.
Dark, chilling and complex, WHITEOUT is a haunting, stunningly plotted thriller from one of Iceland’s bestselling crime writers.
My thoughts: This is the fifth book in Ragnar Jonasson’s Dark Iceland series and I needed to read this one before the sixth and final book comes out next month. While these books are not really fast-paced, I find that I become completely consumed in the story that I end up reading them in a day or two.
This book is set a few days before Christmas and has Ari Thor partnering up with his old boss Tomas to get to the bottom of a death that turns more sinister by the minute. I loved that this installment had the ultimate locked-room style mystery to it and it really kept me on my toes as to how who was responsible for the death. Not only was there the death of the one woman that Ari Thor and Tomas were looking into, but also that of past deaths.
All the characters that we meet have their secrets and this makes them all suspicious. I had a hard time figuring out just who might have been the guilty one and was wavering back and forth, which I loved. I don’t always like when I figure it out and I definitely did not this time around.
This book, as they all have been in this series, was completely atmospheric, which lends to a sense of foreboding. The isolated area, the lighthouse, the cliffs, the chilling landscape all add to the overall tension of the story.
I cannot recommend this book and this series enough but I highly suggest reading the series in order so that you can fully appreciate the main characters and all that has happened with them.
Books in this series:
- Snowblind
- Nightblind
- Black Out
- Rupture
- White Out
- Winterkill – December 2020 (e-book) / March 2021 (Paperback)
