Winterkill

By Ragnar Jónasson

THE STUNNING FINAL INSTALMENT OF THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING DARK ICELAND SERIES

**Sunday Times BOOK OF THE MONTH**

‘Jónasson is an automatic must-read for me … possibly the best Scandi writer working today’ Lee Child

‘Is this the best crime writer in the world today? … Truly a master of his genre’ The Times

'The engaging Ari Thor returns in this darkly claustrophobic tale. Perfect mid-winter reading' Ann Cleeves

‘A stunningly atmospheric story. Ari Thór Arason returns in this pitch-perfect, beautifully paced crime novel … Ragnar Jónasson is at the top of his game, and a master of the genre’ Will Dean

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A blizzard is approaching Siglufjörður, and that can only mean one thing…

When the body of a nineteen-year-old girl is found on the main street of Siglufjörður, Police Inspector Ari Thór battles a violent Icelandic storm in an increasingly dangerous hunt for her killer … The chilling, claustrophobic finale to the international bestselling Dark Iceland series. 

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjörður, the northernmost town in Iceland, as crowds of tourists arrive to visit the majestic ski slopes.

Ari Thór Arason is now a police inspector, but he’s separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air.

Three days before Easter, a nineteen-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident, and when an old man in a local nursing home writes ‘She was murdered’ again and again on the wall of his room, there is every suggestion that something more sinister lies at the heart of her death… 

As the extreme weather closes in, cutting the power and access to Siglufjörður, Ari Thór must piece together the puzzle to reveal a horrible truth … one that will leave no one unscathed.

Chilling, claustrophobic and disturbing, Winterkill is a startling addition to the multi-million-copy bestselling Dark Iceland series and cements Ragnar Jónasson as one of the most exciting and acclaimed authors in crime fiction.

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Praise for Ragnar Jónasson

‘A sinister twisted tragedy’ The Times 

‘If Iceland missed out on the Golden Age of crime writing, the country – and Jonasson – is certainly making up for it now’ Sunday Times

‘Outstanding … Series fans will be sorry to see the last of Ari Thór’ Publishers Weekly

‘Jonasson’s Dark Iceland novels are instant classics’ William Ryan

‘Jónasson’s punchy, straightforward prose is engrossing … A diverting mystery’ Foreword Reviews

'Consummate crime writing … poignant and disturbing’ New Books Magazine

‘Chilling, creepy, perceptive, almost unbearably tense' Ian Rankin

'A tense, gripping read' Anthony Horowitz

'Icelandic noir of the highest order, with Jónasson's atmospheric sense of place, and his heroine's unerring humanity shining from every page' Daily Mail

’Ragnar Jónasson writes with a chilling, poetic beauty’ Peter James

’Traditional and beautifully finessed’ Independent

‘Jónasson’s true gift is for describing the daunting beauty of the fierce setting’ New York Times

‘A chiller of a thriller’ Washington Post

‘Jónasson’s books have breathed new life into Nordic noir’ Express

• Language: English
• Publisher: ORENDA BOOKS
• Release date: Dec 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913193454

Ragnar Jónasson

RAGNAR JÓNASSON is an international number one award-winning and bestselling author who has sold over four million books in thirty-six territories worldwide. He is the only Icelandic author to have entered the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. Jónasson was born in Reykjavik, where he also teaches copyright law at Reyk­javík University. He has previously worked on radio and television, including as a TV news reporter, and, since the age of seventeen, has translated fourteen of Agatha Christie’s novels into Icelandic. He is the co-founder of the Reykjavík internation­al crime writing festival Iceland Noir. His critically ac­claimed international bestseller The Darkness is soon to be a major CBS Studios TV series, starring Lena Olin as Hulda, directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Ragnar's novel, Outside, is in development as a feature film by Ridley Scott's production company.

Reviews for Winterkill

[askelmore · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Best for:Fans of Icelandic crime fiction.In a nutshell:A young woman is found dead on a sidewalk, apparently having jumped from the balcony of a home. Or did she?Worth quoting:N/A. I just raced through the book.Why I chose it:Four years ago I picked up the first in the Dark Iceland series at the Iceland Airport. I immediately tracked down the rest of the books, and then read what I thought was the final (fifth) book. In a bookstore this weekend, I wandered over to the J section in Crime and saw there was a sixth!Review:I enjoy these books. They aren’t formulaic but they aren’t totally absurd either. Yes, there are often twists, and sometimes they are ones that I didn’t see coming, but also that are specific enough that it might be hard for anyone to see coming. That said, I always find them interesting. Ari has gone from a new officer in the first book to the Inspector in charge of police in the town in the final one. We’ve followed his relationships and the birth of his son. He’s not the most complicated person, but he is interesting enough. The star of these books, however, is the way Jónasson writes about small town Iceland. Even in the spring, there’s a sense of claustrophobia, but not in a bad way. The people are mostly pretty typical, but they also all know each other, which makes keeping secrets a bit of challenge. Things are connected, and not always in the ways a reader might predict.In this particular book, there are a couple of different storylines, which may or may not be related. Plus, Ari’s ex is visiting with his son, so there’s a slight romance angle as well. I believe this is now the final book in this series, as he Jónasson has moved on to create a new series (the first two books I’ve also recently procured). It’s a decent enough wrap-up to the books, and I’m glad I got another chance to see how Ari would handle a case.Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:Donate it

[anniemod · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Apparently the explosion of Icelandic books being translated led to scarcity of translators so Orenda Books decided to get this one translated via the French translation. Either that or it was just much cheaper to do so. A bit over 2 years had passes since last time we saw Ari Thór Arason - it is Easter and it seems like for a change that there won't be a blizzard during the holiday. Kristín had finally left for Sweden to finish her education, taking their son with her (now 3 years old) and the relationship which had survived a lot had finally cracked completely. Kristín and the boy are coming to visit and Ari Thór really hopes that the crime in the small town will keep at bay for awhile. He had been finally promoted and now has the job that Tomas had when Ari Thór moved north 7 years ago, complete with a cheeky rookie (one wonders if he sees how similar he is to how he was 7 years ago). And then a teenager falls from a balcony and dies on the sidewalk. So much about the calm holiday. This is the 6th book in the series which was not planned - Jónasson returned to his finished series. In a lot of ways it serves as a goodbye - get us caught up on how everyone is doing, allow some dangling threads from earlier books to close, give closure to Ari Thór. Ugla, who he fell for in the first book, comes back in his life, as usual at the time when he is still trying to decide if he is ready to let Kristín really go (not that Kristín sees it the same way - for her the only connection left is their son). As with earlier books, it is as much a crime novel as it is a novel of a place - we see more of the area that we had not seen before and we get the usual investigation method from Ari Thór - go forward until something shakes up. He is not a criminal investigation genius - he gets his wins by hard work - and tends to overlook things - as any normal person will. The book is melancholic - it feels like we are saying a final goodbye and the overshadows the crime a little bit. Oh, we do learn what happened and see once again that some people really do not deserve to be part of the human race - it is the vulnerable and the young who suffer. But Ari Thór's final decision of where his home is is what drives the novel - it is a place where we can leave our detective and don't worry about him. It is not a good introduction to either the author or the novel - it is a love letter to the readers of the series. Even if it can work somewhat on its own, it will be incomplete and I don't believe the crime is not enough to carry it. But as an epilogue to the series, it is perfect. And I will miss the small town of Siglufjörður and its occupants and especially its Police Inspector Ari Thór Arason.

[romonko · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was glad to receive an ARC for this book, and glad to provide an honest and unbiased review of this book. This book was originally published by Goldsboro Books, and it was published in French. I read the English translation (c) David Warriner (2020). This is apparently the latest book in the Dark Iceland Series. This is book #6, and I must admit that I had not read the other books in the series when I received this. The book is set over the Easter weekend in the town of Siglufjorour in Northern Iceland. Ari Thor is the police inspector that caught the case when a young girl is found bleeding out on main street in Sigluflorour on the Thursday before the Easter weekend. It appears to Ari Thor that the girl has jumped from the roof of a building adjacent to where her body was found. As he investigates, Ari Thor determines that the death is not so straightforward, and the girl may not have jumped on her own. As the investigation continues over the Easter weekend, it appears that there is a lot more to the story than Ari Thor assumed, and by the time he has finished he has solved two cases of unnatural deaths, and found himself a new love interest in his life at the same time. I found that the book was slow off the mark, and it took until almost the end before there was any tension built up at all. The book proceeds until the very predictable ending while Ari Thor investigates his cases during a raging March blizzard. I enjoyed the descriptions of Iceland and it's many wonders, and I enjoyed Ari Thor. He is a very likeable police inspector. The storyline, though was no real surprise, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to sample this series that I've heard a lot about. Thank you to Edelweiss and to the publisher for this opportunity.

[cathyskye · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I am a huge fan of Ragnar Jónasson's writing, so I pre-ordered Winterkill and couldn't wait to read it. Evidently, fans of his Dark Iceland series begged the author to write one more book about Ari Thór Arason, and Jónasson obliged. While not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, Winterkill felt flat to me, as if Jónasson's mind had already moved to greener writing pastures. Winterkill basically rounds out the story of Arason. The series began with his moving to a small town in remote northern Iceland as a new recruit to the police department, and each successive book showed him growing in experience while his personal life didn't run nearly as smoothly. Arason is now the head of the police department in town with a new recruit of his own that he must train. Once the dead girl's personality is fully uncovered, it's not difficult to deduce what happened, and the mystery mainly concerns itself with how Ari Thór can prove what happened and what the old man's wall scribblings are all about. When all is revealed, an occurrence at the end of the book isn't much of a surprise either. Perhaps the best thing in Winterkill is how Jónasson wraps up his main character's personal life.For those fans who wanted all the loose ends neatly tied up, their wish came true, but don't expect this to be of the same high caliber as so many other books written by the supremely talented Jónasson.