Portobello Book Blog

Rupture is the fourth in Ragnar Jonasson’s Dark Iceland series and I think it’s the best yet! I have read and reviewed the previous three and if you’d like to read my reviews, please use the search box to look up Ragnar Jonasson. In this book, Siglufjordur is in lockdown to prevent the spread of an infectious disease which sounds similar to ebola. You would think this would mean that policeman Ari Thor would be having a quiet time with all the residents staying safely at home but no! There is a hit-and-run to deal with, political intrigue, a child abduction, a cold-case to investigate which might or might nor be murder, Ari Thor’s boss possibly moving away and he is rekindling his relationship with Kristin. It’s all go in this usually a quiet, isolated northern Icelandic town.

I seriously think they need to get more police in Siglufjordur. Ari Thor and his boss Tomas are managing the whole town between them which means they pretty much have no days off. The town may have been a quiet place before but over the course of the last few books, it seems more crime is being committed and more and more long-held dark secrets are being revealed. Maybe it’s the cold weather and isolation which drives people slightly mad causing them to commit crimes? Isrun, the news reporter from Reykjavik, makes a reappearance in this book and I enjoyed how she and Ari Thor’s investigations, while seeming separate initially, gradually overlapped and connected.

As with all the Dark Iceland books, Rupture is well paced with many little twists and surprises revealed along the way, keeping me interested and keen to find out what would happen next. There is plenty of tension, particularly with the abduction of the child. The child’s step-father has reasons of his own to want to keep his past well hidden from his new partner. It was good to get more of a look at the characters’ personal lives in this book with Ari Thor showing his warmer side as he and Kristin make tentative steps towards reconciling. Isrun’s personal life added another interesting aspect to the story and I hope we get to see her again.

Rupture is an excellent crime read with the beauty of Icelandic location adding plenty atmosphere and chill. The quarantine adds an even greater feeling of claustrophobia than ever. Ragnar Jonasson draws together the threads of his story beautifully leading to a satisfying ending. But please, someone get Ari Thor more colleagues!

My thanks as always to Karen Sullivan at Orenda Books for my copy of Rupture. It is available now in both paperback and as an e-book. You can order a copy online here: Rupture

From the back of the book

1955. Two young couples move to the uninhabited, isolated fjord of Hedinsfjörður. Their stay ends abruptly when one of the women meets her death in mysterious circumstances. The case is never solved. Fifty years later an old photograph comes to light, and it becomes clear that the couples may not have been alone on the fjord after all…

In nearby Siglufjörður, young policeman Ari Thór tries to piece together what really happened that fateful night, in a town where no one wants to know, where secrets are a way of life. He’s assisted by Ísrún, a news reporter in Reykjavik, who is investigating an increasingly chilling case of her own. Things take a sinister turn when a child goes missing in broad daylight. With a stalker on the loose, and the town of Siglufjörður in quarantine, the past might just come back to haunt them.

Haunting, frightening and complex, Rupture is a dark and atmospheric thriller from one of Iceland’s foremost crime writers.