Black-out

An Ari Thór Thriller
By Ragnar Jonasson
Translated by Quentin Bates

This book, written in 2011, was published in English in 2018. It was the only one of Ragnar’s ‘Dark Iceland’ mysteries to have escaped my purview. Set in during the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in 2010, the post-crash economy of Iceland is just starting to pick up when a laborer is found murdered at a remote farmhouse which was undergoing renovations. Ari Thór and his sidekick Tómas investigate the case while Ísrún, a news journalist from Reykjavík, drives up to Akureyri to cover the situation for televison.

This is one of Ragnar’s better efforts, the plot is complex, but not to the point of confusion. Many of the characters have flashbacks as the scope of the underlying cause of the crime becomes revealed. There is a bang-up ending, perhaps a little too neat, but satisfactory. It does take place in the summer, however, so the weather is actually nice in the North, in contrast to the volcanic ash and pollution from Eyjafjallajokull. At less than 250 pages it is a good vacation read.

The translation by Bates is odd: lifeless, awkward phrasing, British usage, and even a few typos. This isn’t fine literature, but a decent translation could have made it better.

Marginal recommendation.