Audiobook Review: THE DARKNESS by Ragnar Jonasson

Title: The Darkness

Author: Ragnar Jonasson
Narrator: Amanda Redman
Read: July 2018

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

At sixty-four, Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Reykjavik Police is about to take on her last case before she retires: A young woman, an asylum seeker from Russia, found murdered on the seaweed covered rocks of the Vatnsleysuströnd in Iceland.

When Hulda starts to ask questions it isn't long before she realizes that no one can be trusted, and that no one is telling the whole truth. Spanning Reykjavik, the Icelandic highlands and the cold, isolated fjords, The Darkness is a thrilling new crime thriller from one of the biggest new names in Scandi noir.

My musings:

I really love Jonasson's Dark Iceland series, so I couldn't resist picking up The Darkness when it popped up in the list of recommendations on Audible. DI Hulda Hermannsdottir is an interesting character, defying all stereotypes of your average fictional detective. It was refreshing to see an older female protagonist lead the story in this dark mystery, offering not only her vast experience, but also a rich past that made for an intriguing background. In fact, Hulda is only a few months short of retiring when she is being told by her boss that her replacement would be arriving in two weeks' time, at which stage she will be expected to vacate her desk at the station. A most undignified finale to four decades of serving the public! As a parting "gift", or to keep her occupied on her last days on the job, Hulda is allowed to choose one cold case that has haunted her to look into one last time. Forced into a corner and somewhat afraid of being pushed into early retirement, Hulda chooses to re-open the investigation into the death of a young Russian asylum seeker, whose body had been discovered floating in an icy river. Her death, which had been investigated only in the most perfunctory manner by one of Hulda's less diligent colleagues, had been deemed a suicide for lack of evidence. Hulda has never believed this verdict, as it didn't make sense to her that a woman who had been on the verge of being granted asylum would kill herself. Once she starts asking a few questions it becomes obvious to her that some vital clues have been overlooked, and Hulda is becoming more and more convinced that the Russian woman had been murdered.

I can never resist a story about a cold case, as I find them so intriguing. The lies, the secrets, the little clues uncovered one by one – it all makes for fascinating reading! Jonasson offers his usual cold, bleak atmosphere to this story (which I enjoyed), and a straight-forward prose that tells this tale in an almost matter-of-fact voice. Even though I found myself getting invested in Hulda’s story very quickly, there were a few elements that did not work well for me. Some parts of the story dealt with Hulda’s early childhood, which formed part of her later personality. Whilst intrigued with these snapshots into Hulda’s past, they managed to make the story a bit disjointed and didn’t marry well with the rest of the tale for me. I also think that too many of Hulda’s secrets were revealed too soon. If there is going to be a sequel (I believe this is the first part of a trilogy told in reverse), these details would have been better kept back from the reader, as I felt they didn’t quite gel with the overall picture I had formed of Hulda and make me hesitant to pick up further books in the series. Furthermore, I was a bit underwhelmed by Hulda’s investigation, which lacked much of the suspense and finesse of Jonasson’s other novels. In summary, this was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I enjoyed parts of it, and not others, and am not sure if the format of a trilogy told in reverse really works for me.