Blogtour review - Trap by Lilja Sigurðardóttir

Trap (Reykjavik Noir, 2)
Lilja Sigurðardóttir (Translated by Quentin Bates)
Orenda Books, 18 October 2018
PB, e 230pp

I'm grateful to Orenda Books and to Anne for inviting me to take part in the blogtour and for letting me have an advance copy of Trap.

This is the sequel to Snare, picking up the story with the two women Sonja and Agla far apart - Sonja has fled with her young son Tómas and is hiding out in Florida - perhaps as much from her feelings about Agla as from her ex husband Adam. Agla in turn is sunk in misery, mitigated by booze and drugs, at home in Iceland. (I loved the portrayal of the ,lovesick Agla, pining for Sonja).

But things don't last that way for long.

Pretty soon Sonja's back home in Iceland - without even the chance to buy some warm clothes - and is again under the thumb of ex husband Adam "the slave driver" for whom she's required to smuggle drugs into the county.

And Agla's pulled herself out of her slough of despond. She knows she'll do some time in prison for the financial scams she took part in, but not much - a lot of the truth never came out - and she's cheered by Sonja's return, so sets about a new tranche of financial chicanery to dig herself out of the hole the first lot got her into...

I really enjoyed this pacy, well constructed novel and its three women protagonists, the third being María the police investigator who's been looking into Agla's past misdeeds. Each is, in a different way, subject to the wants and whims of powerful men - Sonja, to Adam, and the appalling Mr José (a drugs boss who keeps a tiger in his basement) and a collection of thugs and goons they employ to carry out their narco crimes, Agla to the executives in the bank she used to work for and María to her male colleagues and superiors who seem to be playing games and using her to go where they wouldn't dare tread.

Each, in their various ways, plots to get out and to get free. 

It's only though when Sonja meet Mr José's glamorous wife Nati that the chain of events begins that might shake things up.

This is a really fun book. The characters, especially Sonja, are driven from one tight corner to another with thing just seeming to get worse and worse. They make some terrible mistakes, but on the whole they're smart and sharp, doing the best they can. That makes for a satisfying and tense novel. But this book has an emotional punch too - a whole flurry of punches coming at the reader from all directions. There's Sonja's desperation at being sucked back into cocaine smuggling. There are the various relationships - Agla's desperate desire for Sonja, revealed in the blundering ways she tries to restart their romance; Sonja's protectiveness for her son; even Bragi's (the corrupt Customs man) need to make his wife's last days as comfortable and safe as he can.

And there's also the seething, scalding rage that Sigurðardóttir directs at those who trapped Iceland in the financial scandal - Agla and her ilk, but mostly the higher ups who were never brought to justice. It's not that the book is filled with rants, but we see how everyone's been hit by the crash, and what it has wrought. While the drugs smugglers portrayed here are undoubtedly evil men (mainly men) there's a question left hanging about whether others, who are no less evil and have probably caused more damage, aren't getting away unscathed.

As ever, Quentin Bates' translation conveys the story clearly in English while leaving a hint of the original, so you recognise that the story's set abroad - a difficult balance to keep.

I'd strongly recommend this book.

You can buy it here from your local independent bookshop via Hive, here from Waterstones or here from Amazon. Other suppliers are also available.

Do look out for other stops on the blogtour, there are some fantastic reviewers here!