I got this softcover at a local Barnes and Noble. I've enjoyed several of Jónasson's Scandinavian-noir novels; this one, in which he collaborates with Katrín Jakobsdóttir - who was the Prime Minister of Iceland at the time! - is a bit of a change of pace. It deals with the disappearance of a teenaged girl from the island farmhouse where she was working for the summer. The book opens with a young police officer investigating the disappearance in 1956, then leaps forward by decades - at first following the same officer as his career advances and as he continues to wonder what happened to the missing Lara. By the time the narrative reaches 1986, the perspective shifts to a journalist, Valar, who's hoping to revisit the old case on its anniversary and perhaps turn up some new information. His investigation does produce new clues, but then he dies in a traffic accident (or was it an accident at all?), leaving his grieving sister to go through his notes and take up his mission.

The majority of the book takes place in 1986, and includes historical incidents - such as the Reykjavík Summit between US President Ronald Reagan and USSR leader Gorbachev. It features many aspects of Icelandic life, politics, economy, and culture at the time. And, yes, we do eventually find out what happened to the missing girl. For me, though, the whole thing was a bit... flat? The solution to the mystery was rather obvious, the reasons why it remained hidden so long also pretty obvious, just... straighforward. Maybe I read too many twisty suspense thrillers to be satisfied with a tale in which people find evidence, hand it over to the police, and have everything work out {wry grin}.

I left this book in the Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in MA here.]

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** 2025 Oh, the Places We Can Go challenge **