A detective story with a difference. Just let Jonasson lead you and let it happen. You might think you know ... but do you? Really?

This is good,really good. It is exceedingly well crafted and well translated. The characters all have an element of sadness as they struggle with complex problems in their lives. The lead character, an unwilling retiree from the police force,is very well portrayed as she tries to end her career on a high note. There are many unexpected twists to the story which keep the reader hooked. The setting in Iceland is convincing too and surely provides the background for a television program based on the book.

DI Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavik Police is being forced into dreaded retirement at the age of 64.

In her final two weeks on the force, she decides to investigate a cold case - the death of a young Russian immigrant, Elena.

The case was not thoroughly investigated and Hulda sets out to find out the truth behind the young woman's death.

The detective soon finds herself with new leads and no back-up as she presses towards uncovering Elena's killer.

From the moment I met Hulda I liked her: firm, fair and keeps a tight rein on her emotions.  A bit of an outsider in the department these days, Hulda's not 'one of the boys' but it's still a shock to her to find herself suddenly side-lined into retirement.  As a woman of 54 myself, I was indignant at her treatment - she could be so many of us - a woman of a certain age, no longer seen, no longer useful.

The book is written in three strands - the main one where Hulda investigates Elena's death and two others.  One tells the story of a young woman who is reluctantly out in the freezing Icelandic wilds with a man she doesn't know very well.  The other tells of a young mother who is forcibly separated from her child. In these other two strands, we are given no names, but we care desperately about what happens to the women and so we have to keep those stories spinning until we know for sure who we're reading about.  And this mystery gives us a lot to think about as we accompany Hulda on her journey through the stark beauty of the Icelandic landscape.

I don't want to reveal too much of the plot, but there are red herrings enough keep you on the back foot all the way through.  And WHAT an ending Jónasson gives us in The Darkness!  You'll be on the edge of your seat, I promise you!

This is book number one in the Hidden Iceland series from Ragnar Jónasson (The book's Icelandic title is 'Dimma', which means 'Darkness') and there are another two novels to follow.  I'll be reading them all!

Wow. This was…unusual. I’m still trying to work out how I feel about it to be honest. I am wondering if it somehow loses something in translation.

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is facing an unwanted early retirement after her long service with the Reykjavík police. To fill her last days before her departure, she re-opens a cold case of an apparent suicide of a young Russian refugee. It quickly becomes clear that there is perhaps more to the story than was ever investigated and she embarks on a race against time to solve a mystery that no one else wants to know about. Interwoven into the tale are flashbacks from various viewpoints revealing a strange dark history and leading up to an unexpected conclusion.

On one hand, I loved the bleak Icelandic backdrop and the creeping sense of the sinister. The mystery itself is reasonably engaging with a nice bit of social commentary about the utter lack of interest in justice for a refugee woman. More problematic is Hulda herself. As a protagonist she’s far from likeable in many ways, alternating between prickly, whiny, mopey and just downright questionable in many of her choices. You wonder at some stages how she functioned for so long as a police officer. There’s an explanation for some of her behaviour but by that point I was pretty turned off as a character. I also simply didn’t buy some of the plot twists.

That ending was…well, it was certainly memorable and will no doubt get people talking. I am definitely left wondering where the series goes from here! I would recommend the title with 3.5 stars simply because it is quite different and overall an entertaining enough story.

This is the story of Hulda's final case. I really liked the style of writing and the fact that it is set in Iceland. I got totally immersed in the story and was totally surprised by the ending. I would definitely read more books by this author.

When I started reading I was expected a run of the middle Iceland noir story. I was wrong! What sets it apart is that the main character is a single 64 year old woman on the edge of retirement and that the story is less about the crime but more about the main characters. I loved it and cannot wait for the second volume

An easy seductive read. A standalone novel from Ragnor Jonasson. I have loved his Dark Iceland series so this was a slightly different read but just as good. His skill of setting the scene in Iceland's atmospheric scenery and weather makes you feel you are there in the remote landscape. I loved this also had a lot more city settings along with the midnight sun. A great mystery with a non-traditional detective - Hulda - a 64 year old lady solving her last case before retirement. A gripping story with a fantastic twist and truly clever ending.

The Darkness is an Icelandic mystery thriller.

The central character, Hulda, is written about and you get a sense of her character such that the final twist is a big surprise. The story is well written and uses Iceland as a key component ov the tale.

The book tells the tale of Hulda as she is, approaching retirement, alongside the story of a young girl and her mother from a time not that long ago that single mum's were a family's dirty secret. The two stories cross paths.

A very enjoyable read and one that I would recommend.

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Iceland police, is 64 years old and soon to retire, but as far as her boss is concerned she may as well go now - he's got a much younger person lined up for her job, and he's male, which just about sums up Hulda's career - never 'one of the boys' quite literally, she's always been treated with derision by her colleagues. So she'll be overjoyed with the prospect of retirement won't she? No, not in the least, it's what gets her out of bed in the morning, what gets her adrenalin going.

However, before she hands in her badge for good, her boss agrees to let her take on one more case - a cold case involving a young female Russian immigrant who was found dead a year ago. Hulda believes her colleague Alexander didn't put much effort into this case, preferring to dismiss it as suicide - Hulda believes there was more to it than that, and is determined to get justice for this girl.

I'd heard great things about this author, so I was excited to read The Darkness. Alas it didn't quite live up to expectations for me. It was an ok read, and I really liked Hulda, but I never felt gripped by the storyline, never felt excited to get back to it.

* Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin UK-Michael Joseph for my ARC. I have given an honest review in exchange*

Not only an Icelandic whodunnit but a whydunnit! A 'Nordic noir meets Agatha Christie' page turner that incorporates a rearview mirror to the past as this unusual story evolves and we follow the sixty-four year old detective inspector, Hulda Hermannsdottir, suddenly cast adrift from the job she lives for, but who is reluctantly allowed a final case before her enforced retirement.
My own bucket list demands a visit to Iceland, but this casts the country of snow and ice in a different, less romantic, more brooding light. As we read, we see the beauty but feel the chill of the landscape and of Hulda's life. The surprise ending comes as a thunderbolt out of the glacial blue.

The descriptive passages in this book brought beautiful Iceland firmly to my mind and the characters were (mainly) true to the perceived Icelandic personality- dour. The lead character has little to endear her to the reader: so cold, so aloof, so isolated and with little or no humour either evidenced or perceived. The story is good but a background look of ‘a’ character then further background looks at others without any clue who one was reading about became confusing until nearly the end of the book..... The story itself was good and used the country as it’s greatest asset.. well written but sadly missed it’s mark for me

Unusual Icelandic detective novel sees the fairly inept detective Hulda Hermannsdottir given permission to investigate her choice of cold case to fill her last few days before a retirement she’s dreading. She chooses the death of a young asylum seeker which was originally dismissed as suicide. The novel switches between Hulda and 2 other unnamed female characters, one a young single mother forced to put her baby in some kind of institution and the other a young woman travelling into the country for an adventure in the snow with a man who’s obviously very dangerous. As the novel explains, premeditated murder is virtually unheard of in Iceland so Hulda doesn’t follow any of the police procedures we are used to in English detective fiction but she still manages to get much further with the case than the incompetent officer who first investigated it. I found the triple narrative a little confusing at first then guessed who the young mother was and where the novel was going but found the plot plodded along very slowly; even when she’s given just 24 hours to get to the bottom of it, after falling out with her boss, she still wasted half of that time getting drunk and oversleeping since she hadn’t even a semblance of urgency. Although the case is solved by the end of the novel, there’s no sense of achievement and I found it very unsatisfying.

A true Nordic murder story. The main character, Hulda is aged 64, this pleased me to see this as I am in this age bracket.
Tackling one last case, a cold case before her retirement. Good story with twists.

I suppose with a title like 'Darkness' and being a translation from an Icelandic book then you should expect a dark, sombre story. This book definitely meets these expectations. However, I would have preferred a little dry, sarcastic humour somewhere in the book but there was nothing I could see, The book is well written, translates well although as usual you have no idea of the place names other than they will be cold and snowy in winter with long days in summer. I enjoyed the book very much. You are given many opportunities to get to know Hulda but you find out even more detail as the book progresses and near the end the biggest surprise of all. From the first part of the book I did not expect the ending but as you progress and digest the wording in later chapters you realise there can only really be one outcome. Nevertheless a great read and very enjoyable.

The Darkness is a textbook crime novel, for better or worse. During the dark and cold months of Iceland, we meet Hulda Hermannsdóttir, a detective inspector who is about to take on her last case before retirement. A young woman, an asylum seeker from Russia, found murdered on the shores. It doesn't take long for Hulda to realise that there is more to the cold case than meets the eye and that not everyone is telling the whole truth.

I have a personal fascination with Iceland as a place and culture, having learned the language for multiple years. This was my first encounter with Ragnar Jónasson and I approached it with a fair portion of excitement. The Darkness turned out to be a simple and satisfying read, that however didn't manage to surprise me. The language is not the most sophisticated, but clear and precise. The narrative has some surprises to offer, but all of them unfold in such a linear and step-by-step manner that I never felt fully gripped by the crime aspects of the story.

The true gem of this story is the story of Hulda - a woman who lost both her husband and daughter and who, at the age of 64, has a fear of being lonely and dying on her own. It's a touching and relatable fear and set against the backdrop of such a cold place it ended up being an atmospheric winter read. Ultimately I felt well entertained, but wasn't left with the desire for more, either.

This book reminded me of an old fashioned whodunnit. It's the first novel I've read by Ragnar Jonasson and I will definitely read more.

Thanks to Netgalley for my copy.

The Darkness is not the first book I've read by the author, and as such, it suffers from the same problems. It is very bluntly written, others might think this a reflection of the starkness of Iceland, but I think it's just the author's writing style, and while it makes for a ridiculously easy read it is not necessarily a good thing as there is a lack of description other than what the weather is doing and everything feels 'half-formed' and also, 'too easy'. The causality of the book throws up few surprises.

There are three intermingling stories told in this incredibly short tale, and while they all eventually resolve into some sort of coherence, I didn't find the resolution satisfying or indeed, that convincing.

I always want to enjoy these books set in Iceland, I am drawn to the bleakness of it all, but I am, sadly, often left disappointed, and this is the same for this book. There just needs to be 'more' to these stories, and even the unconventional ending is ultimately disappointing while also being bold, a strange this to say, but true all the same.

An unusual police thriller with an unconventional heroine. Forced to retire our heroine decides to look into a cold case wrongly described as closed. She upsets her superior but doggedly continues until she is found out for letting off a woman guilty of a hit and run with good reason. Told to finish straight away she decides to finish her investigation with a devastating result. Recommended!

https://www.librarything.com/work/20853434

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavik Police has always found herself a bit out of step with the predominantly male dominated force that she works in. Things have been a little fraught lately and when Hulda is suddenly forced into early retirement she manages to negotiate herself an extra week or so to work on the cold case of her choice.

Hulda knows straight away which case she will focus on. A young Russian woman had been found dead on a remote beach. She had been seeking asylum in Iceland and after a very brief investigation her death had been ruled a suicide.

After a couple of days of asking questions Hulda is certain that the young woman's death was murder. No-one seems to be telling her the whole truth and it looks likely that she wasn't the only young woman to go missing in that area.

If you've read any of Jónasson's Dark Iceland series you'll recognise his distinctive writing style. His books tend to weave several stories together in the background. These ancillary stories give depth and humanity to the main feature and make you think more about what is happening in the foreground.

Ultimately "The Darkness" reaches an unexpected and very dramatic ending. By the last few pages you find that you forget to breathe as its reaches its shocking finale.

Supplied by Net Galley and Penguin in exchange for an honest review.