With Ragnar Jonasson We would already have the perfect shortlist of black literature coming from the remotest part of the Nordic world. The other two would be Arnaldur Indridason y Auður Ava Olafsdóttir. All three come from that ship-shaped Iceland that seems to sail between the Norwegian seas and the North Atlantic. A fascinating island perhaps considered as Europe because even further away is the particular "island" of Greenland, naturalized in those ways as Danish. Because what is by location could perfectly pass through North America.
But geographical issues aside, the issue as far as literature is concerned, is that participating in that Nordic condition to address the crime genre is yet another claim that strengthens that denomination of origin of the last circles to the north of our planet. But since nothing is free, not even the cultural particularities that distance highlights, in these three authors we find similar notes in a dark but existentialist symphony.
And it is that the criminal also has its own in its charge for representing sociological aspects. It is not the same to read a novel by Vazquez Montalban or Camilleri to go north to discover new noir stories in much more closed societies ...
The point is that, as the wise man would say, we are human and nothing about humans is alien to us. So what Ragnar Jónasson tells us in his black iceland series It nourishes us with a new empathy towards the way of seeing and understanding the world in tune with that half-light to which life is subjected in those latitudes of Iceland. The perfect excuse, its chiaroscuro to emphasize the telluric, the biological, the great meaning of sunlight as a horizon for souls and psyches ...
Top 3 recommended novels by Ragnar Jónasson
The Lady
When we all believed that Ragnar Jónasson was a complete delivery to the Black Iceland series, camouflaging more and more in his Ari Thor, suddenly a new series arrives. Who knows if Ari will return or even have a cameo in this new series. The point is that Ragnar opens a new space for the criminal narrative with his usual rhythm and his commitment to the extreme staging of fascinating Iceland.
With his new protagonist, Hulda, Ragnar seems to have delved into the profiling of his characters. Discovering like many other authors that the female role provides a multitude of possibilities to discover underworld heroines or to consider all that of the feminine sixth sense as a virtue to face any type of evil.
Hulda Hermannsdóttir is one of the best investigators in the Reykjavik police. Despite this, just turning sixty-four, her competence and commitment to her body seem not to have been enough: her boss wants her to retire early. But Hulda has given everything for her career, and the prospect of leaving a job to which she has given herself heart and soul unsettles her. How will she face loneliness? The experienced police fear that the old demons that have always haunted her, and that she has managed to keep locked away from her, will finally find her.
However, just before leaving, she is authorized to take on one last case of her choosing. Hulda is clear about which report she will reopen: long ago, a woman was found dead in a bay near Reykjavik. The investigation, abruptly closed by a colleague, never came to fruition and the case was declared unresolved. Now, she Hulda will personally take care of it with only one goal: to find the truth. And she only has fifteen days to achieve it.
Shadow of fear
If there is bad shade, bad business. If we don't find it stuck to our feet, even worse. The point is that the black elasticity of the shadow is described by the whims of a sun bent on repetition, in the inexhaustible cycle for us. But perhaps for the rhythm of the universe it is something hopelessly out of date.
The point is that there are places where the shadow ends up wanting to rise as a bad omen to spread to every corner. And this is how evil lurks, cast a bad shadow like an atavistic fear of the night that ends up captivating lost souls with temptations of blood, revenge and eternity.
In Siglufjördur, a small fishing village in the north of Iceland, only accessible by tunnel, everyone knows each other and nothing ever happens. Ari Thór, who has just finished police school in Reykjavik, is sent there for his first case. This ideal place where "nothing ever happens" is a lifeless body with signs of having been murdered during his first days in office. Thus begins an investigation that will change young Ari's life forever.
Fog in the soul
Time seems to pass at a different pace in that icy Icelandic north where the cold seems to slow down the moments between vast landscapes. That is why a remote yesterday can return as unexpectedly as calm, with the naturalness of what just happened. It does not matter a day or a century if the ice is able to stop heartbeats and blood. Because life is locked under the permafrost waiting for some possible future opportunity to reclaim what was left pending in the last thaw.
1955: Two sisters and their partners move to an isolated and uninhabited fjord. Their stay ends abruptly when one of the women passes away under mysterious circumstances. Without witnesses, leads, or suspects, the case is never solved. Fifty years later, in Siglufjörður, isolated by a strange virus, an old photograph of the time comes to light that seems to indicate that they were not the only inhabitants of the fjord ...
The young policeman Ari Thór will try to reconstruct what really happened that fateful night in 1955 with the invaluable help of journalist Ísrún, who is investigating an increasingly chilling case. But the situation will take a new turn when a child disappears in broad daylight.
Other recommended books by Ragnar Jonasson
The white death
Iceland is a paradox in itself. Fire lurks beneath its ice. And when the elements return to their atavistic struggles the world plunges into the most sinister shades of ash. These encounters leave curious gray prints on the ice and the earth and on the soul ...
During a bright summer night, a man is brutally beaten to death on the shores of a quiet fjord in northern Iceland. When the midnight sun turns to darkness due to an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption, young reporter Ísrún leaves Reykjavik to investigate the event on her own. Ari Thór and his colleagues at the small Siglufjördr police station grapple with an increasingly puzzling case, while their personal problems push them to the limit.
What secrets does the murdered man keep and what does the young journalist hide? As the silenced horrors of the past threaten the entire town and the darkness grows more intense, a race against time begins to find the killer before it is too late.
The eternal night
There are authors who can no longer detach themselves from their characters. With a fourth installment, one exceeds the border of reason to declare the complete transition of the world of its characters. Ragnar is becoming Ari Thor. The good thing about this is that there is no turning back and authenticity ends up giving each new plot an almost existential noir category.
Many years have passed since Ásta last set foot on Kálfshamarsnes, a small spit of land in the north of Iceland where time seems to have frozen: the basaltic rocks, imposing and beautiful; the vast expanses of land, with their lights and shadows; and, above all, the lighthouse.
In those remote places, Ásta spent part of her childhood and now they welcome her. Three days before Christmas, Ásta's body is found lifeless at the foot of the cliff, exactly in the same place where, twenty-six years earlier, her mother and her younger sister lost their lives in strange circumstances. Ari Thór will be in charge of a case in which the past will be a fundamental piece to solve the mystery. Dark and compelling, the fourth installment in the Black Island series is a haunting, atmospheric and utterly compelling thriller.
the silenced truth
The fifth installment of the Black Island series. An elaborate plot with hints of the most elaborate policeman between deduction and suspense. And it is that Jonasson's is becoming an inexhaustible repertoire of noir. His protagonist Ari Thór is for him an inexhaustible source of stories for the enjoyment of readers already affiliated with his brand all over the world.
In the middle of the polar night lashed by wind and rain, Herjólfur, the new chief inspector of the Siglufjördur police, is murdered in cold blood in an abandoned house on the outskirts of the city. What brought him there at that time, to that place about which mysterious stories have been told for years? Ari Thór will start an investigation alongside Tómas, his former superior, who travels from Reykjavík to support him in the search for the murderer: who can benefit from the death of a policeman? And don't many of the townspeople have a good reason for wanting to wreak havoc?
Elín, who is fleeing from a violent past; Gunnar, the mayor, who hides ancient secrets... To put together the puzzle, Ari Thór must also listen to a voice that whispers to him, hidden behind the walls of a psychiatric hospital, and which may hold the key to the enigma.
