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2000s: Would you go to the most remote island in Iceland? Who else is there though?
2000s: Would you go to the most remote island in Iceland? Who else is there though?
Elliðaey is an isolated island off the coast of Iceland. It is has a beautiful, unforgiving terrain and is an easy place to vanish.
The Island is the second thrilling book in Ragnar Jonasson’s Hidden Iceland trilogy. This time Hulda is at the peak of her career and is sent to investigate what happened on Elliðaey after a group of friends visited but one failed to return.
Could this have links to the murder of a young woman ten years previously out on the Westfjords? Is there a killer stalking these barren outposts?
Ragnar Jonasson has found the most remote and isolated island on which to set a novel. It’s unhabited and very chilling in this book! Turns out it’s a great place for a retreat, a getaway etc. However, in this novel, it’s the perfect setting for a group of friends to reunite after several years apart. What they reunite for and why, is the question…
For one of the characters, it’s their first visit:
“It was her first visit to the Westman Islands, the little archipelago of some fifteen volcanic islands and innumerable stacks and skerries, that jutted dramatically out of the sea off the south coast of Iceland. Earlier that morning,she had flown with her friends to Heimaey, the largest island and the only one that was still inhabited.”
This is the island of course which made the news in real life in 1973 when its volcano erupted and the people have to evacuate. Now, some people return. One never returns. Found dead on the island, but how and why?
The atmosphere throughout is chilling and claustrophobic. A sense of there’s no way out and the killer is still on the island. The fear that no one would ever hear your screams if something did happen to you. Ragnar captures this haunting thrill that the island oozes and weaves it like icicle through a gripping plot.
Brilliant and evocative. A great edition to your Ragnar collection. This is the second in the Hidden Iceland series and looks at the story of Hulga. The clever and rather unusual thing about this however, is the fact that this story lets you see why the events in The Darkness are the way they are.
This mystery was creepy and multilayered. The idea of having a reunion on this island was bone chilling!…..
Read TheBooktrail’s Bookreview of The Island by Ragnar Jonasson
Destination: Elliðaey Author/guide: Ragnar Jonasson Departure Time: 2000s
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