The Blurb
Fresh from maternity leave, Detective Elma finds herself confronted with a complex case, when a man is found murdered in a holiday cottage in the depths of the Icelandic countryside – the victim of a frenzied knife attack, with a shocking message scrawled on the wall above him.
At home with their baby daughter, Sævar is finding it hard to let go of work, until the chance discovery in a discarded box provides him with a distraction. Could the diary of a young boy, detailing the events of a long-ago summer have a bearing on Elma’s case?
Once again, the team at West Iceland CID have to contend with local secrets in the small town of Akranes, where someone has a vested interest in preventing the truth from coming to light. And Sævar has secrets of his own that threaten to destroy his and Elma’s newfound happiness.
Tense, twisty and shocking, Boys Who Hurt is the next, addictive instalment in the award-winning Forbidden Iceland series, as dark events from the past endanger everything…
My Review
Aegisdottir never concerns herself making the reader or her characters comfortable, in fact she works extremely hard to unsettle and challenge them, all in the best possible way. And what a challenge she gave returning detective Elma, wrapped in the warmth of new motherhood, the stabbing of a man was perhaps not the easiest of returns. The mysterious staging ignites her baby brain and it’s not long before she is hurtled into a complex and utterly fascinating investigation.
Yet it wasn’t only Elma that became involved, Soevar, her partner and currently on his share of paternity leave is unwittingly drawn in, the discovery of a diary of the son of the previous occupants in their new home deepens the mystery. They made a good team and gave the novel a softer, more personal side that was very much needed as the novel wormed its way into the darkness of abuse, bullying and murder. But there was a little something that tweaked the interest, the merest hint that perhaps Soevar had something he wanted to keep hidden.
Oblivious, Elma carried on as the bodies piled up and the victims pasts crept into the present. Was their teenaged selves, their antics at a Christian summer camp about to catch up with them and just who was out for revenge?
I tried to work it out, but so intricate and utterly intriguing was Aegisdottir’s plotting I didn’t stand a chance of getting it right. I think that’s one of the things I like so much about her novels, the myriad of possible perpetrators, the blind alleys you are led down before the inevitable surprise at its conclusion.
It was a novel that highlighted how one person can manipulate and coerce those around them, to pick on the weakest, to take it to the extreme. Secrets never stay hidden forever, the past and maybe karma have a nasty habit of catching up, and Aegisdottor did this so brilliantly it was hard not rush to discover the next glorious twist, to stop and enjoy her wonderful narrative.
It may have been a new beginning for Elma but there were hints of trouble ahead that I am sure only Aegisdottir has knowledge and will no doubt make us sweat it out until all is revealed.
Roll on the next instalment.
I would like to thank Orenda Books for a copy of Boys Who Hurt to read and review and to Random Things Tours for inviting My Bookish Blogspot to participate in the blogtour
About the author
Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study my MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. After moving back home having completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel. Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a short story contest in Iceland.
Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first novel. The book went on to win the Blackbird Award and became an Icelandic bestseller. Eva now lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík, staying at home with her youngest until she begins Kindergarten.
mybookishblogspot 
Thanks for the blog tour support x
LikeLike