#Blogtour #Review - Shrouded by Sólveig Pálsdóttir

Shrouded (Ice and Crime, 7) 
Sólveig Pálsdóttir (translated by Quentin Bates)
Cory's Books, 25 July 2024e, 
Available as: PB, 270pp, e   
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 97817392989-6-8 

I'm grateful to Corylus Books for sending me a copy of Shrouded to consider for review, and for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

This was a welcome return for the Ice and Crime series. Shrouded is the seventh book in the series but the fourth to have been published in English (so, there's more goodness to come!) and I hadn't realised until I started on it how much I've come to rely on having one of these in my life each year.

It's also a welcome return to Guðgeir Fransson and Elsa Guðrún, the detectives who have to identify the killer of reclusive, set-in-her-ways Arnhildur. The pair are now familiar bookfriends, and it was great catching up on their families and preoccupations.

So, to the murder... we see Arnhildur's death at the start of the novel, and a creepy set-up it is if ever there was one, involving a séance and a spooky graveyard at night. Once the investigation begins, the question inevitably arises - Is this the sort of woman one would expect to be at a séance - what brought her there, and who was the mysterious man she left with?

In fact, "spooky" is a good word to sum up this story. As the investigation proceeds on its scientific, 21st century course, we start to see glimpses of another, older Iceland, a country of different beliefs, of inherited abilities, a country that takes the weird in its stride. I was particularly struck that, while some of the characters here choose not to pursue that spooky side of things, nobody outright rejects it. The interplay between the two attitudes is fascinating, contributing to a sense that something is just a little bit off, a sense that builds into a rising tension as the story unfolds.

At the centre of that "spooky" strand is an unusual young man, the medium from the séance, who seems to be going through his own torment. Is he involved in the crime? Is he a charlatan? Or does he have insights that might help crack the case. If he does, they're certainly tormenting him. If he doesn't, surely his guilt is clear? Either way, he seems to know too much.

Through all this, a pattern of events gradually unfolds, a pattern rooted in the history of Arnhildur and her family. Drawing together old wrongs, a bitter feud over family property and a whole set of lives blighted by a tragic accident, the book illustrates - perhaps - the consequences of holding grievances and indulging in too much stubborn self-reliance. The story is, in the end, intricate, twisty, and, while I kind-of anticipated the penultimate twist, still surprising to the very end.

Apart from the intricacies of the crime itself, Shrouded has plenty of incident (and interest) as it records the lives of Guðgeir, Elsa and their families. It's actually rather comforting to see them going about their lives around the investigation, though a new strain of tension is added by Guðgeir's concerns about his and Elsa's boss, Særós, who's somehow slightly distracted and less meticulous than usual. What can be wrong, in such a well-ordered life?

Another excellent instalment in this series which gives us more than just mysteries, but also heart in its varied cast of characters and their complex lives. As ever, Quentin Bates's translation is crisp and readable, providing a good idiomatic read while still making it clear, with a distinct use of language, that we are not in Britain now.

For more information about Shrouded, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy Shrouded from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, Waterstones or Amazon.

#Review - Silenced by Sólveig Pálsdóttir

Silenced (Ice and Crime Book 2)
Sólveig Pálsdóttir (trans by Quentin Bates)
Corylus Books, 15 April 2021
Available as: e-book
Source e: Advance e-copy provided by the publisher

I'm grateful to Corylus Books for providing me with a free advance copy of Silenced to consider for review - and for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Silenced follows The Fox, in which we met Guðgeir Fransson, a detective with the Reykjavík police who was under a cloud and waiting for a decision on the future of his career (and also, his marriage). Now Guðgeir is back in Reykjavík and while he's not got his old job back (that role is held by his former protégé Særós) he is playing a useful part in investigations, at the same time as he and his wife move from a house that clearly holds painful memories.

That move brings Guðgeir across the path of Andrea Eythórsdóttir, a young social media influencer (I really enjoyed seeing Guðgeir grapple with that idea!) whose brother vanished twenty years before. Andrea is pretty traumatised by the whole thing and taking to the bottle, and Guðgeir begins to look into the case. He has barely got started however when he's called away to investigate the apparent suicide, in prison, of another young woman - swiftly followed by the first in a series of particularly brutal rapes.

Silenced has, as you'll have gathered, some dark themes. Like The Fox, it exposes patriarchal violence against, and control of, women and a content warning would be in order for the book since there are some frank (though not gratuitous) accounts of what happens. Pálsdóttir expertly weaves together a number of strands: Andrea, who as I have said, is herself troubled; her somewhat haughty family; Kristín, the young woman who died in prison and whose earlier life is seen both in flashbacks and in the words of a friend; and Guðgeir's own life, back on track but about to be upset when his student daughter announces that she is pregnant. I liked the way that Pálsdóttir then has Guðgeir reflect on that - on the extent to which the boyfriend may or may not become involved in parenting, on the childhoods and life chances of the people he meets as part of the investigation, especially the Eythórsdóttir children, and on his own earlier life. There's a sense of Iceland being a small place where paths cross often with different characters having attended the same college at different times, for example, as well as that closeness still allowing goodness knows what to happen in some families, unsuspected by those outside.

In contrast to all this exploration of human nature, I also enjoyed the sense of Guðgeir settling back into a familiar place, in contrast to his life as seen in The Fox where he was out of his element. 

Which only makes it all the more disturbing, of course, when the attacks on women begin to mount and the team need to react and track down the perpetrator. That procedural aspect of the story makes this also an excellent book if seen primarily as a mystery (I did work out what was happening before the end) and I like the fact that, while dealing with very serious crimes, neither this book nor its predecessor give the centrality to murder that one so often finds in crime.  

The translation by Quentin Bates is clear and strikes a good balance between keeping the setting and atmosphere clear - this is obviously Iceland! - and leaving the reader to puzzle over details or references with which they may be unfamiliar. 

An excellent addition to a series that I am looking forward to following.

About the Author

Sólveig Pálsdóttir trained as an actor and has a background in the theatre, television and radio. In a second career she studied for degrees in literature and education, and has taught literature and linguistics, drama and public speaking, and has produced both radio programming and managed cultural events.

Her first novel appeared in Iceland in 2012 and went straight to the country’s bestseller list. She has written five novels featuring Reykjavík detective Guðgeir Fransson and a memoir, Klettaborgin, which was a 2020 hit in Iceland.

Silenced (Fjötrar) received the 2020 Drop of Blood award for the best Icelandic novel of the year and is Iceland’s nomination for the 2021 Glass key award for the best Nordic crime novel of the year.

Sólveig lives in Reykjavík.

For more information about Silenced, see the publisher's website here (including buy links) and the stops on the blogtour, listed on the poster below.

You can also buy Silenced from your local bookshop, or online from Blackwell's, Foyles, Waterstones or Amazon.