#BlogTourReview: WinterKill by Ragnar Jónasson

Welcome to my last blog tour review of 2020. And I couldn’t have a better choice to finish the year with!!

A few months ago I shared a post on Twitter about an Icelandic tradition called Jolabokaflod The idea behind this is simple and quite brilliant; on Christmas Eve people give gifts of book and chocolate and then retreat to their beds to enjoy them. For a book worm, especially one at the end of exhausting year this sounds like the perfect plan.

And what better book to snuggle up with than Ragnar Jónasson’s WinterKill published this month by Orenda . It’s Icelandic setting and air of intrigue make it the perfect Jolabokaflod read.

Set in Siglufjörður, a small but growing tourist town in the north of Iceland, we find Ari Thor. It is the beginning of the Easter weekend and the Police Inspector is awaiting the arrival of his estranged partner and young son. But his weekend takes a unexpected turn when in the early hours he is called to attend the body of a young teenage girl.

Found lying on the pavement in the street, the girl appears to have jumped from the balcony of an empty flat. The victim, Unnur is a local teenage; studious, quiet and close to her mother, it is impossible to see why see might have taken her life.

As the investigation develops and the weather closes in, it seems that there are many pieces of this jigsaw. But none of them seem to fit.

With Unnur’s mother adamant that her daughter wouldn’t have killed herself and only one tantalisingly out of character reference found in Unnur’s diary the leads are slight, and Ari Thor’s frustration mounts along with the encroaching storm.

But then a resident in a local care home scrawls the message ‘She was murdered’ over and over again on the walls of his rooms. How does this relate to a young girl he appears to have no links to?

Jónasson is the master of gentle, building suspense, of leading the reader down blind alleys and switching tack at the last minute. The whiteout that wraps it’s slowly around the action and climax of this novel keeps the reader guessing in more ways than one.

Yet again Ragnar Jónasson has pulled off the perfect crime novel. Authentic characters and skilled plotting are in evidence throughout. This is the perfect Christmas Eve read.

Huge thanks to Orenda Books and Anne Cater at Random Tours for the chance to take part in this blog tour.

And there is more…

For more reviews and reactions, check out the rest of the #WinterKill blog tour …