Today I'm a stop on the Random Things tour for the 10th anniversary edition of Ragnar Jonasson's Snowblind!
Ari Thorne is fresh out of the academy when he's sent to the isolated town of Siglufjörður. It means leaving his girlfriend behind in Reykjavik. It also means settling into a village that has just one point of entry: a tunnel. And in storms and bad weather, even that is cut off. A call about an intruder leads Ari into a web of intertwined cases that illustrate just how much can be hiding even in the most idyllic situations.
But first, readers are treated to Fadeout. See, Snowblind isn't Ari's introduction. Fadeout finds the theology student searching for his missing father!
It's amazing to me that Snowblind has been out for over a decade now (ten years in English). It kicked off the Nordic Noir sub genre, as it is today.
And sure, it wasn't the first to be translated to English. It wasn't THE FIRST of the subgenre. But it absolutely can be argued as one of the first that really got international readers to pay attention.
And Snowblind boasts some of the best hallmarks of Nordic Noir: a small, isolated village; insular culture; a whodunit where anyone could be the killer; and a detective new on the job looking for respite in a small town and getting anything but that!
I actually came to the Dark Iceland series after Hidden Iceland trilogy (now adapted for tv). I've been a fan of the author's work ever since. And in truth, the subgenre has got me through 2020 when I had such a hard time concentrating on reading.
If you've never read Jonasson, this is your chance! Find out what all the fuss is about (trust me, you'll love it!).
Huge thanks to Orenda and Random Things for having me on the tour!
1 comment:
Thanks for the blog tour support x
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