Night Shadows by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir
The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.
A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to.
As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide...
About the author
Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study my MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. After moving back home having completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel. Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a short story contest in Iceland.
Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first novel, The Creak on the Stairs. The book went on to win the CWA Debut Dagger, the Blackbird Award, was shortlisted (twice) for the Capital Crime Readers' Awards, and became a number one bestseller in Iceland. The critically acclaimed Girls Who Lie (book two in the Forbidden Iceland series) soon followed, with Night Shadows (book three) following suit in July 2022. Eva lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík.
Review
‘Night Shadows’ is the third in the Forbidden Iceland series and is the best of the bunch so far. It was a slow burn of a story, as we got to know the various characters but wow towards the end I was getting ready to hurl my book away in anger! The tension was immense, my heart is still racing now. It was a tightly plotted story with hidden clues and prompts and lots of twists and turns. I had forgotten one of them entirely until the end! As I said this is the third book in the series after ‘A Creak on the Stairs’ and ‘Girls Who Lie’ but you can read this as a standalone very easily. I would advise reading the series though as all the books are brilliant and Eva is emerging as one of the best new writers coming out of Iceland.
Arkanes is rocked by a fire and when a body is discovered and it is deemed the fire was caused by arson, the police need to find out if Marino was alive before the fire was lit. Detective Elma and her partner Saevar investigate and they soon realise that this case is not going to be easy to solve. Before Marino died he was looking at how to hide a body on the internet but the police only have his body and no missing persons…
‘Night Shadow’ was an engrossing story and manages to maintain a reader's attention with its short chapters and beautiful writing. Eva managed to capture the allure of Iceland through its poetic language and credit is due to a brilliant translation by Victoria Cribb. I loved the characterisation of the main players in this case from the interactions and dynamics between the group of young people who have been friends since high school to the portrayal of a damaged marriage. All felt very realistic and as their stories began to emerge you become aware of how complex they were as social units. Everyone of them had different strands to them and when they all began to merge and intertwine it soon becomes clear what is happening…or is it?!
Now I'm going to sit here patiently and wait for book four to be published!
