#BlogTour – #BookReview of #Winterkill by Ragnar Jónasson @ragnarjo @RandomTTours @OrendaBooks #DarkIceland @givemeawave

I’m excited to welcome you today to my stop on the blog tour for the final thrilling installment of Ragnar Jónasson’s outstanding series of books featuring Police Inspector Ari Thor. Thank you to Anne Cater and Orenda Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this fabulous book.

About the book:

Easter weekend is approaching, and snow is gently falling in Siglufjörður, the
northernmost town in Iceland, as crowds of tourists arrive to visit the majestic ski slopes.
Ari Thór Arason is now a police inspector, but he’s separated from his girlfriend, who lives in Sweden with their three-year-old son. A family reunion is planned for the holiday, but a violent blizzard is threatening and there is an unsettling chill in the air.

Three days before Easter, a nineteen-year-old local girl falls to her death from the balcony of a house on the main street. A perplexing entry in her diary suggests that this may not be an accident, and when an old man in a local nursing home writes ‘She was murdered’ again and again on the wall of his room, there is every suggestion that something more sinister lies at the heart of her death…

As the extreme weather closes in, cutting the power and access to Siglufjörður, Ari Thór must piece together the puzzle to reveal a horrible truth … one that will leave no one unscathed.

Chilling, claustrophobic and disturbing, Winterkill marks the startling conclusion to the million-copy bestselling Dark Iceland series and cements Ragnar Jónasson as one of the most exciting authors in crime fiction.

About the author:

Icelandic crime writer Ragnar Jónasson was born in Reykjavík, and currently works as
a lawyer, while teacher copyright law at the Reykjavík University Law School. In the past, he’s worked in TV and radio, including as a news reporter for the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service.

Before embarking on a writing career, Ragnar translated fourteen Agatha Christie novels into Icelandic, and has had several short stories published in German, English and Icelandic literary magazines. Ragnar set up the first overseas chapter of the CWA (Crime Writers’ Association) in Reykjavík, and is co-founder of the International crime-writing festival Iceland Noir.

Ragnar’s debut thriller, Snowblind became an almost instant bestseller when it was published in June 2015 with Nightblind (winner of the Dead Good Reads Most Captivating Crime in Translation Award) and then Blackout, Rupture and Whiteout following soon after.

To date, Ragnar Jónasson has written five novels in the Dark Iceland series, which has been optioned for TV by On the Corner. He lives in Reykjavík with his wife and two daughters.

Winterkill has been translated into English by David Warriner.

My Review:

Winterkill by Ragnar Jónasson is the final thrilling installment of the outstanding Dark Iceland series of books featuring Ari Thor. Brilliantly translated by David Warriner, this book is an intense and disturbing read with a chilling claustrophobic feel that had me gripped from beginning to end.

This time Ari Thor is investigating the death of a nineteen year old local girl who appears to have fallen from the balcony of a house on the main street. At first Ari believes her death to be a suicide, but then information comes to light that casts doubt over what actually happened. Did Unnur fall as the result of an accident? Or was she pushed to her death by an unknown assailant? As Siglufjörður becomes more and more isolated due to the freezing cold weather, Ari must do all he can to fit the pieces of the puzzle together until the horrifying truth is finally revealed.

With shocking twists and turns to keep you on your toes throughout, Winterkill is a chilling read that kept me reading long into the night. The remoteness of the setting and the intense and claustrophobic feel of the book all added to the tense atmosphere as Ari Thor drew ever closer to the truth of what happened to Unnur and, even more chillingly, why.

Winterkill is Icelandic Noir at its very best and Ragnar Jónasson has written an astonishing finale to what has been a fantastic series of books. I loved Ari Thor from the moment he was introduced and will miss the Dark Iceland series now it has come to an end, but I’m very much looking forward to reading more from the pen of this talented author in the future.

Highly recommended.

Winterkill by Ragnar Jónasson is available to purchase now: Amazon UK

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