Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Island
Ragnar Jonasson
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Island
Ragnar Jonasson
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Island, by Ragnar Jonasson, is the story of many characters: Benedik and the girl he’s gone to a summer house with. She claims to be able to cast spells. It is also about Hulda, a policewoman who wants to move up in the police force, and about Veturlidi and his wife Vera and their young son Dagur. At an early hour of the morning, Veturlidi is awakened and arrested by two police officers. One of them, Andres, had discovered the body of a young woman in a summer hut in an isolated spot. The girl’s mother had reported her missing earlier in the week. Is this the woman Benedik loved and had gone away with? Author Jonasson, who lives in Iceland, weaves a thriller from the beginning.
Andres had borrowed money from a loan shark and Detective Lydur questioned him and tried to make him admit he had seen a jumper near the body of the dead woman. Lydur wants to solve the crime quickly and by himself. Veturlidi, the father who is awaiting trial for the murder of his daughter, worries what other people will think of him, even if he’s found innocent. And Andres, worries that he had lied in court about seeing the jumper near the dead girl. Lydur has told him he will arrange for his loan to be forgiven if he tells the court this lie.
Meanwhile, Hulda decides to find who her father was, and flies to New York. From there she goes to Georgia and looks up a man named Robert who may have met her mother in Iceland during the war. Benedik gathers a group of his former friends to have a reunion at an isolated house on an island on the coast: Alexandra, Klara, Dagur, and Benedik will be there.
The author gives hints they are there to commemorate an event that happened here ten years before. Dagur recalls his father had admitted to having been a secret drinker. Dagur vows never to touch a single drink. We learn that Dagur is the son of Venturlidi and watched him being arrested when he was a little boy. It was traumatic for him.
Klara wakens them all with a scream, she thinks she has seen the dead woman. They calm her down, but Benni has disappeared. Alexandra and Dagur go outside to look for him. Meanwhile, Hulda is in Georgia in the U.S. trying to find her father. The Robert she finds is not her father. She goes to the grave of another Robert. She gets a call that an investigator is needed to check on a fatal accident on an isolated island. It is Klara who lies dead at the base of a high mountain on that island. Hulda interviews each of the people at the party and sees the similarity to the event of ten years ago. Everyone thinks it is an accident. The pathologist tells Hulda there are fingerprints at the base of Klara’s neck. Who did it? Were they all close friends? Lydur, who solved that case, says there is no way. Hulda continues her investigation. Will she be promoted if she solves this case? She needs a raise, she is a poor single woman in Iceland. Find this intelligent mystery on the new mystery shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Andres had borrowed money from a loan shark and Detective Lydur questioned him and tried to make him admit he had seen a jumper near the body of the dead woman. Lydur wants to solve the crime quickly and by himself. Veturlidi, the father who is awaiting trial for the murder of his daughter, worries what other people will think of him, even if he’s found innocent. And Andres, worries that he had lied in court about seeing the jumper near the dead girl. Lydur has told him he will arrange for his loan to be forgiven if he tells the court this lie.
Meanwhile, Hulda decides to find who her father was, and flies to New York. From there she goes to Georgia and looks up a man named Robert who may have met her mother in Iceland during the war. Benedik gathers a group of his former friends to have a reunion at an isolated house on an island on the coast: Alexandra, Klara, Dagur, and Benedik will be there.
The author gives hints they are there to commemorate an event that happened here ten years before. Dagur recalls his father had admitted to having been a secret drinker. Dagur vows never to touch a single drink. We learn that Dagur is the son of Venturlidi and watched him being arrested when he was a little boy. It was traumatic for him.
Klara wakens them all with a scream, she thinks she has seen the dead woman. They calm her down, but Benni has disappeared. Alexandra and Dagur go outside to look for him. Meanwhile, Hulda is in Georgia in the U.S. trying to find her father. The Robert she finds is not her father. She goes to the grave of another Robert. She gets a call that an investigator is needed to check on a fatal accident on an isolated island. It is Klara who lies dead at the base of a high mountain on that island. Hulda interviews each of the people at the party and sees the similarity to the event of ten years ago. Everyone thinks it is an accident. The pathologist tells Hulda there are fingerprints at the base of Klara’s neck. Who did it? Were they all close friends? Lydur, who solved that case, says there is no way. Hulda continues her investigation. Will she be promoted if she solves this case? She needs a raise, she is a poor single woman in Iceland. Find this intelligent mystery on the new mystery shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.