A chilling and gripping thriller/ghost story. It drew me in from the first page and is still with me long after I finished it. This is the first Ragnar Jónasson book I've read but it certainly won't be the last.

This is more ghost story than crime novel although there are intriguing glimpses of a murder mystery in the seemingly unconnected paragraphs of a girl accused of murders she can’t remember. An unhappy teacher takes a job in the most isolated part of Iceland in a strange community that make no effort in showing their dislike of her presence there. A series of weird events including the sudden death of one of her two pupils all conspire to give the sense of dark loneliness that pervades the atmosphere throughout until shock revelations at the end provide a light in the murk!

A sad noir tale with a twist

Una lives in Reykjavik and is a mess. She mourns her father who committed suicide; she has few friends; she is drinking too much and is truly short of money. She is considering a complete change of lifestyle when her only friend draws her attention to a job vacancy for a teacher in a remote village. On investigation, it transpires that Skalar is located on the north coast and has a population of ten, of which two are children. She gets the job and sets off with trepidation. On arrival, her worst fears are confirmed.

Iceland is a rare setting for a novel and it made a welcome change. It’s a shame that the author was, for me, unable to develop the atmosphere of the country except to establish that it was cold and snowy. However, this is a minor point as the plot developed exceptionally well and draws in the reader such that it is difficult to stop reading. Just one more chapter was a regular refrain.

The character of Una is best summed up as a bit of a self-pitying loser. She wallows in her grief. She knows her life is in turmoil but it takes a friend to prompt and persuade her to make the massive change. Her actions on occasions are also a little illogical as some of what she does is totally out of character. Many of the other characters are a little two dimensional but that can be forgiven because the plot is excellent and the novel well-written, although the last few paragraphs were a little hackneyed as if the author weren’t quite sure how to draw it all to a conclusion

Jonasson has written other thrillers and this example of his work will tempt me to download a few of them.

mr zorg

Elite Reviewing group received a copy of the book to review.

A teacher in the capital, seeking a quiet life, gets a job to teach some children for a winter term at a remote fishing village in Iceland. She finds herself as a stranger in a close community of only ten souls with two one child families. The village has its secrets that includes the ghost of a little girl that haunts the room where she lives that no one wants to talk about. When one of her pupils also dies and stranger visits the village that no one is willing to know, the tension and sense of isolation builds up until she finally manages to break through, discovering and accepting its secrets so as to be become as one within the bosom of the community.

Una moves to the tiny Icelandic village Skálar to be a teacher to the two girls that live there, but ghosts and murders haunt her stay – who can she really trust?

I was lucky enough to go to Iceland on holiday a few years ago in the dark of winter and fully appreciate just how much of a great place it is to base a crime story in! The village of Skálar with its 10 inhabitants far away from the paths of modern civilisation is a well-chosen, claustrophobic and atmospheric setting for the book. I also love that it is a real place, although mostly in ruins now and uninhabited – it’s somewhere I would love to visit! With the small cast of characters nothing got too confusing and I felt like we got a good introduction to all of them, with each seeming to a have a hidden secret. Una was an interesting main character; she is quite flawed which worked against her in a lot of ways but I liked how realistic this made her. I did think that she made some silly decisions at times though and some of her choices seemed more like plot devices than realistically what the character would do in that situation. When we did get the big reveal towards the end I was a little confused as to why this hadn’t just been shared a lot earlier (for example, before Una tried to get the police involved) - this would have saved a lot of problems further on down the line!

I was expecting a standard Icelandic crime noir with this book but I should mention there is a paranormal/ghost story included as well. I actually think this worked quite well to keep the pace up - it is quite spooky and unsettling and adds to the unease and suspense that runs throughout the book. The Girl Who Died is all about atmosphere and character building so if you are expecting an action-packed thriller you may be disappointed. The beginning chapter is a flash-forward to an event in the middle of the book which really helped to draw me in, however when we got to that point in the plot it just copy-pasted the opening chapter which felt a bit jarring. Usually when this narrative technique is applied there is a change of perspective or some additional information included to make it feel less repetitive for the reader.

Overall, The Girl Who Died is a claustrophobic and atmospheric thriller with a brilliant setting – just be warned that it is quite slow-paced. Thank you to NetGalley & Penguin UK – Michael Joseph for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A gentle weaving together of the different strands of the plot. No great thrills and spills but a comfortable read with the bonus of learning much more about the Icelandic culture and way of life.

I read the Kindle edition and I did so in just one day. The book is dark, dark and dark. A dark story set in a very dark part of the world, in a dark village filled with people with dark secrets. And a bit of a supernatural dark secret too. Or not?
Anyway, after reading the first pages I just rushed through the book because it wouldn't let me go. Very interesting, for a story where almost nothing happens, with characters that are not particularly likable if not downright horrible.
At first, I felt for Una, but as the story progressed I wanted to sit down with her and talk to her. Why is she so scared to talk back to people? Why doesn't she stand up for herself and her way of living? I can understand she didn't feel at home in the village, but she let the villagers treat her badly. Except for two people and maybe one of her young students.
I was so engrossed in the book I finished it before I knew it... and then I felt rather disappointed. Disappointed in myself because I overlooked an important clue - very well done by the author! Am I the only one who didn't see it coming? And disappointed in the ending because I had a distinct feeling I was missing something. For me, the ending didn't do justice to the rest of the book.
Despite this, I hope to read more of this author soon.

Thanks to Netgalley for my digital review copy.

My first Jonassan read, and it definitely won’t be my last. The Girl Who Died is a haunting tale, deftly weaving a contemporary tale of murder and deception with a years-old ghost story.
For reasons known only to herself our main character, Una, has decided she needs a change of scene. Fed up of the anonymity of living in Reykjavík, she decides to look into the advert given to her by a friend. The job? Teacher to a small school in the village of Skàlar...population, ten.
Her arrival at her new home and the sense of unease she feels was masterfully presented. The beauty of the landscape can’t hide its oppressive qualities, the locals are not all that friendly and she can’t help but feel uneasy at the rumours of ghosts in the home she’s living in.
Not much happens...but the building sense of unease hints at Una being caught in something she’s unprepared for. The residents of the village have their secrets, and it’s just a matter of time until these secrets start to unravel.
I’m so grateful to NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication, and now I need to look through my kindle to see what other books by this author I can read. Any recommendations?

This was a really interesting book, with lots of twists and turns and I was trying to work out how everything fit together, but it did and resolved nicely.

I read this in one session, although dark in places was an easy but engrossing read. Would recommend it thoroughly.

I was given an advance copy by the publishers and netgalley but the review is entirely my own.

Excellent atmospheric thriller.

Elements of the supernatural makes it stand out and I usually don’t like this but it is so well written I enjoyed it.

Read if you like scandi noir with a hint of the supernatural.

The Girl Who Died is a scintillating and seriously creepy standalone piece of Scandi Noir from one of the most talented crime writers of today about a young woman seeking a new start in a secluded village where a small community is desperate to protect its secrets. Set in 1985/6, it follows thirty-year-old single substitute teacher Una from Iceland’s frigid capital Reykjavík as she realises she can no longer carry on in her current situation. She wants nothing more than to teach, but she has been unable to secure steady employment in the capital. Una’s current pay as a supply teacher at a small school in the neighbouring town of Kópavogur is barely enough to cover her bills and she is never sure from one month to the next whether she will get enough work. Her savings are depleted, her love life is nonexistent, she struggles emotionally with the sudden suicide of her father and her mother moving on and remarrying and she cannot face another winter staring at the four walls of her shabby apartment. It's time for a change of scene and so when she sees an advertisement in the Morgunbladid newspaper stating ”Teacher Wanted At the Edge of the World,” she decides to take a leap of faith.

The post is in the desolate, remote fishing village of Skálar in Langanes in the Northeastern tip of Iceland. But Skálar isn't just one of Iceland's most isolated villages, it is home to just ten people. Una's only students are two girls aged seven and nine. Teaching them only occupies so many hours in a day and the few adults she interacts with are civil but distant and she feels people are treating her with suspicion and contempt because of her presence in the tight-knit community rather than welcoming her. She only seems to connect with Thór, a man she shares an attraction with but who is determined to keep her at arm's length. She quickly begins to regret her idea of escaping to find a better existence. As darkness descends throughout the bleak winter, Una finds herself more often than not in her attic space rented from friendly (a welcome surprise) landlady Salka, mother to 7-year-old Edda who Una will be tutoring. When she learns that her room is supposedly haunted by a ghost from a local legend she begins to receive nightly visits from a little girl in a white dress singing a lullaby. She finds out one day from a neighbour that a young girl named Thrá had mysteriously died in the house 60 years ago in 1927 and the villagers apparently closed ranks to protect the perpetrator.

Feeling increasingly isolated and aware there are dark, disturbing secrets hidden by the standoffish community, she must decide whether to stay. She becomes withdrawn and turns to wine and with no instant means of communication with her friends or family back home she is lonely. She feels that everyone has something to hide and the situation worsens when one of her students collapses and dies of liver failure after partaking in a Christmas concert at the local church. Will Una stay in Skálar until spring and manage to get the locals to accept her among themselves or will she seek to uncover the shocking truth that's been kept secret for generations? This is a riveting and enthralling thriller with a deeply unsettling plot and an atmosphere unlike any other. Jónasson adeptly uses the isolated, bleak setting to craft a profoundly claustrophobic atmosphere and an omnipresent sense of creeping dread ensuring a compulsive and captivating story that holds you in its grip right through to the denouement. It's chilling and haunting with a supernatural touch and is a fine example of eerie slow-burn historical crime. It's precisely plotted and written beautifully following a reclusive community awash with secrets, lies, deception, betrayal and suspicion. A hybrid of Icelandic noir and historical crime and a top-notch, first-class read. Highly recommended.

This isn't my first Ragnar Jonasson book and won't be my last either.
There's a real dark undertone to the whole story really portrayed well (again, as in previous books) through the chosen setting - in this case the end of the world - or more accurately on one of the most remote villages in Iceland with a total population of 10 people.
The story rolled along nicely setting the scene for a big reveal and leaving the reader feeling a bit disconcerted the whole way through - you couldn't trust anybody and didn't entirely know what was going on - but this was a good thing.
I must admit to being slightly underwhelmed this time by the conclusion of this book - it felt like the whole book led towards a big reveal and it was a bit underwhelming for me - however, that's not to say I didn't enjoy the whole story all the way through it just didn't have the climax I felt it deserved.
4 stars from me and I look forward to the next one.
Thanks as ever for the Advance Review Copy from NetGalley.

Certainly a bit of an unsettling book, and the general spookiness of the location was well portrayed by this talented author. The book was well written, and events and people seemed quite plausible.
I found that the 'reveal' did make sense of what had happened, and the ending did make sense, even though it may not be exactly as readers will wish. I confess I felt that the ending did feel a little incomplete, but I guess that is more like real life than novels.

Una was not thriving in Reykjavik: it was some years since her beloved father had committed suicide without leaving any explanation and since then she'd given up her medical studies and retrained as a teacher. She was thirty years old and money was tight. Her friend, Sara, showed her an advert for a job in Skalar on the Langanes Peninsula. There were only ten people in the village but a teacher was required for two children: a salary would be paid and accommodation provided. Una was the only applicant and the job meant that she could let her flat in Reykjavik and, hopefully, save some money over the winter which her contract covered.

It was isolated: it took Una nearly two days to drive there and the roads were so bad that her car barely finished the journey. She was to stay at Salka's house along with Edda, Salka's seven-year-old daughter and one of her pupils. The other was Kolbrun, who was nine. Edda was outgoing but Kobrun was overly reserved. Una described the villagers as a good bunch of people but the truth was a lot harsher: she was not welcome in the village and life was very lonely. Alcohol became her best friend and the knowledge of her drinking soon spread through the village. The weather was bleak - and not even picturesquely snowy - and it seemed that her attic bedroom was haunted by the ghost of a young girl who had died in the house some sixty years before.

Una fears for her sanity. And then one of her pupils dies in mysterious circumstances.

The story is creepy. I kept having to look away to reassure myself that I was not out on the Langanes Peninsula. I cared about Una rather more than I liked her. I wanted her to cut back on the wine - or even just to get out of Skalar but that would have spoiled the story. There's only one person in the village who's about Una's own age and that's Thor, who lives with Hjordis at the farm. Una's not clear what the relationship is between the two and Thor certainly seems reluctant to start any other friendship. Hjordis is downright antagonistic and makes it clear that Una is not welcome. The rest of the villagers do much the same, some more bluntly than others.

It's a well-crafted story with a plot that stands the test of rereading. I came to the story after having enjoyed Jonasson's Winterkill and whilst this is a stand-alone novel the good characterisation and clever plotting came through again. There's also a particular talent for capturing the atmosphere of the more remote parts of Iceland. He's an author to watch out for: I'll certainly be pleased to read more of his work.

I'd like to thank the publishers for allowing Bookbag to have a review copy.

Spooky and claustrophobic, this is a tense read with many secrets to be revealed. I loved the description of the tiny village at ‘the end of the world’ and enjoyed the cultural customs around Christmas and New Year. The ending may divide readers as to what is right and what is wrong. A well told ghostly tale.

Having lived in a haunted cottage, I didn't find this Icelandic ghost story terribly creepy or indeed thrilling. It was a captivating tale though. Una, a teacher, decides to take on the task of teaching two children in a tiny village miles away from civilisation. She's hosted by one of the girl's mothers, in a flat at the top of the family home. It's an old house with a past. A child died there. Una becomes convinced she is seeing and hearing the ghost of this child in her dreams. For me the creepiest part of this story was the unspoken allegiance each of the villagers had for the other.
Franky if I had been Una, the first thing I would have done having arrived in the village would be to get the damge to my car fixed, so I could escape if needs be. I suppose in limiting her options the author added to the menace. However, there was a serious flaw in the story after the death of Edda. Any sudden death such as hers would have brought about an autopsy and there would have been toxicology reports showing why she died. This for sure would have altered the story dramatically. The translation was excellent and the style very readable but was not as creepy or as thrilling as I would have expected, so it's three stars from me.

I thought I liked Icelandic crime novels but I found this one so difficult to get into. Lots of descriptions of the landscape, which were very evocative. The pace was far too slow for me and I struggled both to care about Una and get through the story

This is a solid, well written mystery, you can feel the cold and chill of northern Iceland, it's so descriptive. Unfortunately, for me, it was a bit slow and although really well written, I did struggle to finish it.

It's a tense and mysterious story about Una, who takes a teaching job in a small village in Iceland following a traumatic family incident and unfortunately, the villagers aren't very friendly.

It's atmospheric mystery and well told, just be prepared to stick with it.

Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin Michael Joseph UK and the author for the opportunity to preview.

When Una sets out to change her life, she really goes all out. 'Teacher wanted on the edge of the world ...' They aren't kidding. Skálar is about as far into the North-East of Iceland it is possible to get without falling off the island and landing in the arctic circle ... Add into that the fact that she is heading north to be a Teacher over winter, in a country where the winter nights are already so long the darkness barely ends, and Skálar being such a tiny and closeted community, and the scene is set for a story which is rich in atmosphere, tension, mystery and who whole heap of spooky goings on.

Now when I say Skálar is tiny, I really mean it. In the UK we'd call it a hamlet. If we were being generous, that is. A village of ten people, at least until Una arrives, and two of them are her students. That whole sense of everyone knowing everyone else's business is amplified tenfold, to that whole sense of apprehension that accompanies Una's arrival in the village, and Ragnar Jónasson uses this to perfect effect. She really is the outsider and that natural trust of such a close knit community, all of whom have long standing ties to Skálar, make it hard for her to really settle and makes for a nerve jangling ride for readers too.

But that's not the only reason, and Skálar is a place that has a dark history, a place nursing many secrets, some of which surround the house that Una is now to call home. Everything about it is pitch perfect, from the long nights, to the chill winds from the sea, adding to that sense of unease that begins very early on in the story. This is part mystery, part ghost story, and Una is soon to discover that it is not only the living she has to fear ... That element of the story is well played, tapping into many of the classic tropes of a supernatural mystery, leaving you wondering just how much of it is real and how much of it Una's imagination, and trust me when I say there are many reasons to question her sanity, and not just her growing sense of isolation. The more we learn of Una, of her tragic past, the more reason we have to be wary of what she thinks she sees.

Intertwined with una's story is a true mystery - the disappearance of a man from Reykjavik. How this ties into this very remote village on the very far reaches of Iceland remains to be seen, but there are passages throughout the novel with are slowly revealed, a first person testimony regarding a very heinous crime. They may seem disconnected from the story at first, and I found myself second guessing who, if anybody, the narrator of these passages might be, but the author allows them to intertwine and tangle, and eventually they start to reveal a much clearer picture of what has happened and what comes to pass. The revelations may be shocking, the reality of the story somewhat melancholic, but then that almost gothic style tragedy really is the undertone of the whole novel and it works well.

If you have come to this looking for one of Ragnar Jónasson's hallmark police procedurals, then you are likely to be surprised. As always, he captures the essence of Iceland's remote and isolated locations perfectly, making part of me crave the solitude it may offer whilst the other, larger part, is thankful of the anonymity of the larger community I live in. With The Girl Who Died, aided by the flawless translation by Victoria Cribb, Ragnar Jónasson provides us with a tragedy laden and undulating mystery, full of atmosphere and with brilliantly crafted and yet flawed characters who keep you as much on edge as the spectral nature of Una's unexpected roommate.

Ragnar Jonasson is one of Iceland’s top crime and mystery authors and this book, his latest, is a standalone not part of his Dark Iceland series. It is set in the 1980s for no very obvious reason except that modern technology (even just a basic Mobile phone) would render the plot unworkable.
Una, a bored out of work teacher in Reykjavik, takes a job teaching two girls in the remote village of Skalar – population ten! The village ‘leader’ is the owner of the fishery, most of the others work for him or are their wives and the feel is like that often used in fiction where there are dark secrets waiting to spill out. The woman who owns the small farm on the hill is part of this group, but she also has a mysterious bearded lodger, Thor. Una meets him while walking on her first evening and appears to form an immediate attraction.
The only other resident, Salka, has recently returned to the village and lives in the family home which she has inherited. Her daughter is one of the two pupils and Una is accommodated in her house, occupying a self-contained flat at the top of the building. The house is haunted by a girl who died sixty years earlier, for reason and by cause unknown. The ghost is seen and heard by Una who is terrified.
Interpolated into the main story are the thoughts of another woman, who appears to have been convicted, with others, of a double murder, of which she has no memory. There are initially, and for some time, no obvious links between these two stories.
Throw in some other strange not very believable happenings, (especially a medical emergency where the medical details are wrong).
So is it a dysfunctional society story, a ghost story, a horror story, or a murder mystery? Perhaps it is a clever blend of them all. Well, it is all of these parts but it isn’t a sum of its parts and it certainly isn’t a blend of the parts. It does all come together at the end but it is a strangely unconvincing ending. Given the pedigree of the author I was very disappointed.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.