Book Review: THE GIRL WHO DIED by Ragnar Jónasson

 

Title: THE GIRL WHO DIED

Author:  Ragnar Jonasson

Publisher:  Penguin Michael Joseph UK

Read: January 2021

Expected publication: 29 April 2021

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

 

Book Description:

 

Una is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps.

So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skálar - population of ten - on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape.

But once she arrives, Una quickly realises nothing in city life has prepared her for this. The villagers are unfriendly. The weather is bleak. And, from the creaky attic bedroom of the old house where she's living, she's convinced she hears the ghostly sound of singing.

Una worries that she's losing her mind. And then, just before Christmas, there's a murder... 

What attracted me to this book:

 

I love Icelandic noir, and Ragnar Jonasson is one of my favourite Icelandic authors – with good reason. I was thrilled to be able to read and review his latest stand-alone novel, which delivered the same kind of atmospheric setting as his Ari Thor Arason books. With the added bonus of a spooky element! 

My musings:

 

Let’s talk a bit more about setting, which was my favourite element of the novel. A hostile little village – both in its isolation, the harsh weather and the suspicious and outwardly unfriendly villagers – made for the perfect claustrophobic setting. Very cleverly, Jonasson chose a 1980’s timeline for his story, which completed the sense of utter isolation. No cell phones, no internet, not even TV to keep in touch with the news. Can we even still imagine such a life? This is the situation Una, a city girl through and through, finds herself in when she takes on a remote teaching post in the far East of Iceland. I have been to the area Jonasson describes in his novel, and even though I found it breathtakingly beautiful, I could imagine that the long nights and harsh weather would soon wear a bit thin, and the lack of human kindness would soon get to you.

 

Not only has Una discovered that most of the locals are not very friendly, and don’t want her here, but she is also aware of some supernatural happenings in the house she is staying in. I give credit to Jonasson for striking just the right balance with his paranormal element to make it just the perfect degree of creepy without going over the top. I also loved the way he employed the setting to ratchet up the creep factor.

 

I found myself very involved in Una’s narrative but thought that the 2^nd POV didn’t marry well with the overall story and didn’t add much for me. I would even go as far as saying that it was superfluous and could easily have been merged into Una’s POV by letting Una discover the “secret”, which would have given the ending a much bigger impact. As it was, I wasn’t invested in those chapters at all.

  

Summary:

 

All in all, THE GIRL WHO DIED was an atmospheric and slightly creepy mystery with that sense of claustrophobia and darkness that makes Icelandic noir so compelling for me. It’s a slow burning mystery which will appeal to readers who value atmosphere, setting and an underlying sense of unease over action and plot. I thoroughly enjoyed it and loved reading a standalone novel by one of my favourite Icelandic authors!

 

 

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Michael Joseph UK for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.