Icelandic authors JÓNÍNA LEÓSDÓTTIR, SÓLVEIG PÁLSDÓTTIR & translator QUENTIN  BATES chat to Paul Burke about the novels DECEIT and HARM

DECEIT: Reykjavík detective Soffía finds herself struggling to cope with a single-handed investigation into a spate of malicious acts taking place across the city, and enlists help from an unexpected direction.
Her psychologist ex-husband Adam has advised the police before, but with Covid raging in the city, would prefer to stay holed up in his basement flat as he deals with challenges in both his working and private life.
He grudgingly agrees to work with Soffía, as the stakes in the investigation are continually raised.
Working out who bears a grudge that goes deep enough to lead to murder, they unravel complex family ties, lingering enmities and a dark past that the victims would prefer to keep secret, while Adam encounters a young woman in a race against the clock to find the father she has never seen, but for what purpose?

HARM: When wealthy doctor Ríkarður Magnússon goes to sleep in his luxurious caravan and doesn’t wake up, detectives Guðgeir Fransson and Elsa Guðrún are called to the Westman Islands to investigate what looks like murder.
Suspicion immediately falls on Ríkharður’s young, beautiful and deeply troubled girlfriend – but there are no easy answers in this case as they are drawn into family feuds, disgruntled friends and colleagues, and the presence of a group of fitness-obsessed over-achievers with secrets of their own.
As their investigation makes progress, Guðgeir and Elsa Guðrún are forced to confront their own preconceptions and prejudices as they uncover the sinister side of Ríkharður’s past.
Harm is the third novel featuring the soft-spoken Reykjavík detective Guðgeir Fransson to appear in English. Sólveig Pálsdóttir again weaves a complex web of intrigue that plays out in the Westman Islands, remote southern Iceland and Reykjavík while asking some searching questions about things society accepts at face value – and others it is not prepared to tolerate.

Produced by Junkyard Dog
Music courtesy of Southgate and Leigh
Crime Time

Paul Burke writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network. He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2022 .

Produced by Junkyard Dog

Crime Time

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