Ratings2
Average rating4
Fresh off of Reykjavik, his career-changing standalone co-written with the Icelandic prime minister, #1 Icelandic bestseller Jonasson presents a riveting new thriller. 1983 At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland, now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five suspects: the chief physician, two junior nurses, a young doctor, and the caretaker, who is arrested following false testimony from one of the nurses, but subsequently released. Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician, is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir, rules his death as suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed. 2012 Almost thirty years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, but decides to return to Iceland when he is offered a job at the Reykjavik police department—the job which detective Hulda Hermannsdottir is about to retire from. He is also a collector of golden age detective stories, and is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, and starts his new job, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn, as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.
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How much did I enjoy Death At The Sanatorium? Quite a lot, as it happens. Once again Ragnar Jonasson has written a compelling, complex thriller that gave me many head scratching moments.
There's a lot to take in. For one thing, the story is told across three timelines; 1950, when the sanatorium was treating patients with Tuberculosis, 1983, when a murder and a possible suicide occurred at the sanatorium, and 2012, when criminology student Helgi is writing his dissertation on the investigation into the deaths at the sanatorium.
The story is told from several POV'S, but it unfolds seamlessly. Short chapters keep the story skipping along at a fast pace. Although the plot is complex, the big reveal when it comes, somehow seems obvious.
All in all, an enjoyable piece of Icelandic noir.