Una answers an advertisement to be a teacher in an isolated village in Iceland . She rents out her home in Reykjavik and moves. There are only 2 girls to teach and it becomes obvious certain members of the village were opposed to her being employed . Una boards with the mother of one of the girls in an attic apartment and sees the ghost of a girl who died 100 years earlier . The village seems to be full of secrets that are being kept from her . Alongside this runs a story of 2 men being murdered and 3 people being convicted without any bodies being found . These 2 stories come together in an unexpected way at the end of the book . Unfortunately I was never pulled in to this story in the way I have been with previous books by this author , and although the premise of the story was good , something was lacking . Unfortunately left me feeling disappointed .

"The Girl Who Died" is a mystery... well, a ghost story. Except it's not. It's definitely a mystery. Kinda. Okay, how about "The Girl Who Died" is a creepy genre-defying book, and a mighty fine read? Because it really does avoid being pigeonholed with simplistic labels like that.

Let's get the basics out of the way. Una is a teacher in Reykjavik. She's not exactly living the life she wants, so when a chance to move to the back end of nowhere arrives she decides to do something different and move out there. And honestly, the only thing that stops it being the middle of nowhere is the fact that it's on the coast and therefore has something to vaguely define it.

Now here's a small thing, the book is set in the mid to late eighties. Why does that matter? Because it helps with the sense of isolation. Every time the world moves on certain stories become untellable. A challenge to travel around the world in eighty days in the 2020s isn't remarkable. Well, except for that fact that so far very few people have been allowed to travel further than their local supermarket I guess, but technologically speaking we all know that you could do it easily now. And in terms of isolation? Here we have a woman who relies on VHS tapes, a landline, and newspapers. Oh, how different this story would be with a smartphone.... How much weaker it would be for a start. Yes, you could easily have the "no signal" option to try and make it seem isolated, but that often feels forced and clumsy. Jónasson clearly thought this through and spotted the numerous times he wanted to have Una cut off from the world, and he took a subtle and rewarding approach to it. And that's how much of his writing works in general - subtly. It allows him to hide frustratingly clever plot points in plain view.

Anyway, Una arrives and we meet the entire village because, well, population: ten. It isn't like the book needs a companion book, or even an appendix, to help you keep track of everyone living there. Some have bigger roles than others, but they all have their place. Anyway, the whole thing becomes spooky. There are tales of a ghost, and now she has both time and wine on her hands she finds her nights disturbed. Now I'm not a big ghost story person if I'm honest, but Jónasson doesn't overdo the vibe. Still, to keep sceptics like me going, there are occasional passages of a different story. One about a murder. Which would make sense if it matched up to the ghost story, but it doesn't so I spent the vast majority of the book scratching my head about the whole thing.

And then, as the pages starting to run out, everything made sense. Yes, this is one of those books that you finish aghast at the fact that the only mystery was how you missed all those details telling you exactly what was going on all along. This is a trait of Jónasson's work that I've read before and yet still I fell for it. Why? Because that man writes like a close-up magician. You're so busy watching one hand you simply don't notice the other one holding the card you picked right in front of you. And, much like close-up magic, it's infuriatingly fun as he explains the trick to you.

And that's truly this book. Forget anything else, it's one well-rehearsed sleight of hand. Every detail has been ironed out, every possible angle has been considered. And the more you get sucked in the more enjoyable it all becomes. It's subtle, but superb.

Thank you for the opportunity to read 'The Girl Who Died'.

Having visited Iceland, I was glad to be able to read a book set in this amazing country.. The cold, bleak landscape of the coastal village echoed the bleak situation the little village found itself in. I found the characters wooden and after getting a fair way through the book, I was hoping that it wasn't going to turn out to be a ghost story. I got through to the ending but wasn't really satisfied and think the book could have been so much more.

Received from Penguin Michael Joseph and Netgalley for honest read and review.
This was a fine Scandinavian Noir book which I enjoyed right from the beginning.
Centres and main character who is a teacher and her journey to the edge of the world for a job.
Really well written and thoroughly enjoyable read,quite dark and gritty in places ,but well worth a read.

I enjoyed this book, but found it a bit predictable. The description of the small village was realistic, but the plot and some of the characters weren’t as well described as they could be.. I have enjoyed other novels by Ragnar more to be honest.

I’ve read a couple of books by Ragnar Jonasson before, so his publisher kindly offered to send me a NetGalley review copy of his latest, 'The Girl Who Died'.

I’m very thrown by it. Nowadays writers are continually told to “show not tell”. It’s become a mantra that can be taken to ridiculous extremes. It is relatively modern writing rule. Many 19th-century authors “tell” all the time. It can seem a little odd to modern eyes, but it doesn’t stop them spinning a perfectly good yarn. I’ve often thought that we could make a great deal more use of straightforward telling, but this book seems to be told all the time. Let’s take a random sentence (the point at which I stopped reading and started to write this):

“Although he hadn’t said so in plain words, there was no doubt in her mind that he had been coming onto her. He had put his arm round her and angled for an invitation to go up to her bedroom. There was no way she could have misunderstood him, was there?”

There is no showing at all here. We are simply told what he has done and that the girl (the main character) had no doubt about his intent. It’s a simple statement of fact and I can see (indeed in the past I would have argued) that trying to look at the whole thing from “inside her head” can be overelaborate and unnecessary. But the story is almost all told in this tone, giving it a certain flatness.

Perhaps the author is trying to reflect the barrenness of the landscape in which our protagonist finds herself. She is in an isolated village on the very edge of Iceland with a population of just ten people. It’s not only a harsh and unforgiving landscape, but it is socially barren as well. Many of the characters seem to be social misfits. (I suppose they would have to be to live in such a place.) This style could, I suppose, have been deliberately chosen with this in mind.

The trouble is, it is, frankly, just boring to read: page after page of flat prose. And nothing really happens. The rather sad attempt at seduction I’ve just mentioned comes a third of the way into the book and is almost the most exciting thing so far.

There is something more exciting: a murder. Possibly a double murder. It appears, apparently arbitrarily, some way into the book and it’s returned to later. On both occasions it’s inserted in italics presumably to titillate us with the promise that eventually something will happen. But when? Is this something that has happened in the past? Or something that will happen in the future? And who is it who has been killed? We just don’t know. It seems a clumsy attempt to inject some interest where, so far, there is none.

The story is set in the Icelandic winter. So we have a rather dull character, her life so empty that she sees a job in this tiny village as an exciting opportunity, living in an almost deserted settlement in the middle of nowhere, when most of the time it is dark.

I’ve always thought that one of the greatest challenges that an author can faces to depict a spectacularly dull life in a way that is not itself dull. I can’t help feeling that Ragnar Jonasson has set himself this task and failed.

I get a lot of books off NetGalley and I feel that there is a social obligation to review them. It’s usually a pleasure. I’ve read many new authors and been exposed to some really interesting novels – including the first two I’ve read by Jonasson. Every so often, though, I come across something which I cannot, in good conscience, give a positive review to. I’ve only read a third of this book, so it may well get massively better, but I’m just finding it such hard work that I’m going to cut my losses at this point.

There is inevitably a lot of subjectivity in assessing any book. Some people may love this. For myself, though, this is going to get one of my very, very rare one star reviews.

Ragnar Jonasson is one of those authors whose books automatically jump straight to the top of my TBR pile.

He effortlessly writes such dark, chilling tales, which really are perfect for this time of year!

The Girl Who Died is a new standalone novel, but still set in a dark, secluded Icelandic town, as we've come to expect and love. For the first time though, I feel that Jonasson has truly written a chilling tale, as well as a murder mystery. Its not often that I have to shine a light into dark corners of the room when reading at night!

The story has a slow, creeping feel to it, yet somehow also manages to race along at a frantic pace from start to finish. Its a perfect winters tale, a perfect crime novel. Simply a joy to read.

Iceland is one of the loveliest countries I have ever visited and therefore I was delighted to be given the opportunity to review The Girl Who Died. Unfortunately I was somewhat disappointed. I found the story strange and oddly unsatisfying. The ending in particular felt as though the author had tired of the story.

In my opinion this title has a lot of unrealised potential. I felt several storylines were underdeveloped and it was trying to cover too many bases at once. The ending felt rushed and was unsatisfying. Shame as the setting was quite intriguing but it fell short for me.

A stand-alone novel by the author of some of my favourite thrillers., I was so excited to be able to read his latest work. Una goes to an extraordinarily remote part of Iceland to become teacher to two girls, and is put up in an attic apartment, which feels inexplicably sinister. The bleak weather, the remote villagers and the odd living arrangements all make Una wonder if she should have stayed in Reykjavik. Very spooky and totally engrossing.

A slow burner but somehow addictive reading. Most of the story was condensed into the last 20%. ,
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I've loved the other books by Ragnar but this one was a bit of a disappointment. It started off well, eerie and mysterious, but the ending felt rushed and was pretty unsatisfying.

This starts off slow but does pick up around the middle. I did a binge read at the end as I wanted to know what the villagers were hiding and it made me wonder what I would do in Una's place. I felt it was a little rushed at the end and, not to give anything away, I felt the other storyline wasn't properly resolved. In general the book as a whole could have had more flesh to the underlying story, too much was taken up by Una and her experience of her life in remote Iceand. However all in all it was okay and was a nice read in the run up to Christmas.

An interesting take on the Nordic Noir genre. For me, the most captivating part of this story is the sense of atmosphere that is infused into the writing. The setting is beautifully drawn and whilst the plot is a little uneven it is nevertheless an excellent way to spend a cold winter's evening.

I found this book to be a huge disappointment. The plot is centred in a remote Icelandic community with only 10 inhabitants. A teacher is required to educate the 2 children and a 30year old from Reykjavik moves there to fill the vacancy. Once there her experiences are anything but normal.
However, in my opinion, Jonasson misses a trick by failing to create believable characters and as a result this reader felt one step removed from the issues they subsequently face. This has the effect of making the plot seem contrived. Feeling the remoteness, the darkness and the undercurrent of danger of this bleak little village is absolutely key to enjoying the book and, by failing to succeed in conveying this, Jonasson loses the balance between character and place. The result is a very average piece of writing. Not what I expect from an justifiably renowned author.

Quite enjoyable once I got into it but it took me a while, I couldn't really warm to any of the characters which is unusual for me. Overall, I didn't think this offering was as good or gripping as previous ones by this author.

Ragnar Jonasson steadily builds a story of ghosts, burgeoning romance, and murder to a totally unexpected ending. Along the way he asks questions about morality - what would you do? Best read on to find out ... and enjoy a very good book.

Loved this Scandi thriller/ghost story set in a remote village with just ten residents. Was so atmospheric and could really picture this tiny village. Forgot how much I liked ghost stories too! Fast paced read, pages just turned themselves!

In 1985, Una answers an advertisement for a ‘teacher at the end of the world’,which in Iceland is the village of Skalar on the Langanes peninsula, with ten inhabitants and two pupils for her to teach. She is escaping her grief after her father’s suicide and her reliance on red wine to dull the pain she feels.
When she arrives she is not welcomed by the villagers.She hears strange singing in the night and sees a ghostly child who she later finds out died in suspicious circumstances in the house in 1927. Her problems continue when she sees a man who she later learns has disappeared without trace ,but when she contacts the police she is not believed.The villagers close ranks and she is threatened by the village leader,Guffi.
Throughout the book there are flashbacks told by a woman who has been wrongly convicted of a murder,but it’s not till the end of the book that we learn the significance of this to the story.
The story held my attention and was quite unsettling ;the author recreates a very creepy atmosphere.However, it’s as if he couldn’t decide whether to write a crime thriller or a ghost story so he did a bit of both. I couldn’t understand why Una didn’t just get in her car and go back to Reykjavik .There are quite a lot of loose ends and the ending doesn’t really explain why she would decide to stay or not.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinion.

A young teacher takes a job in an isolated tiny village in order to get a fresh start in her life and finds herself shunned by the locals in this atmospheric thriller. She senses the ghost of a young girl murdered many years ago and falls foul of the entire village when trying to learn about her death as well as the disappearance of an outsider who visits the village.