Review: 'The Girl Who Died' by Ragnar Jónasson, trans. by Victoria Cribb

 What is a better setting for a thriller than the utter edge of the populated world, a village of ten in the midst of an Icelandic winter? Utter isolation, strong loyalties, dark and cold nights, and a newcomer, a stranger; there is the set-up for a brilliant thriller. Thanks to Michael joseph UK and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 6/3/2021
Publisher: Michael Joseph UK

'TEACHER WANTED ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD . . .'

Una knows she is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps.

So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skálar - population of ten - on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape.

But once she arrives, Una quickly realises nothing in city life has prepared her for this. The villagers are unfriendly. The weather is bleak. And, from the creaky attic bedroom of the old house where she's living, she's convinced she hears the ghostly sound of singing.

Una worries that she's losing her mind.

And then, just before midwinter, a young girl from the village is found dead. Now there are only nine villagers left - and Una fears that one of them has blood on their hands . . .

Nordic Noir experiences a major surge of attention a few years ago which, while it hasn't really fizzled, has stagnated a little bit. Readers are a little more familiar with it now, even if most of the "Nordic Noir" they have read perhaps isn't actually Nordic in nature. In the last year or so I have tried to seek out more Scandinavian authors, in translation, to get a taste for what they do. While I, as a mainland European, am easily impressed by fjords, long nights, and deep snow, this is more of a given to these authors and the way they therefore use the landscape is fascinating. It plays a major role in The Girl Who Died, but the novel's real strength comes from its playing with genres. Is this a stone-cold thriller or is this a ghost story? It adds a level of tension to the novel that keeps the reader distrustful. The past and what we do with it is also a major theme throughout the novel, one which very much kept me hooked despite the novel's slow pace.

Una is not loving life. There is really nothing for her in Reykjavik, except a small flat, a stressful job, and tenuous friendships. So when she comes across an ad for a teacher in Skálar she says writes in. Once she arrives in Skálar, however, it is not the fresh start she had hoped for. It is small, truly small, with only ten inhabitants, including her two young students, and utterly isolated. Her host has no TV. The store mostly has fish. Newspapers sometimes don't arrive. It never snows. Una tries to make the best of it, despite beginning to fear her flat is haunted. But then disaster strikes and as Una's fears and anxieties begin to escalate, the dark night closes in. The Girl Who Died is many things. It has straight-forward thriller elements, with unsolved murders, disappearances, and deaths. There is a supernatural overtone, however, with the growing haunting of Una. The novel moves slowly, revealing one card at a time but always keeping the reader guessing. Is Una really in danger or is she losing her mind? Is Skálar really as weird as she makes it out to be or is she simply unhappy? How far should loyalty go? Is the police really here to help you? Will winter ever end? The Girl Who Dies asks more questions than it answers, which I greatly enjoy in a novel.

What really stood out to me about this novel was the way in which Jónasson creates a sense of claustrophobia and dread. He does so not through shock and horror, or through adding jump scares. Instead, he slowly builds up the pressure on Una and on the reader, he slowly stretches out the long nights, until it feels like there is no light anymore. While I enjoyed this slow pace, it definitely might not be for everyone. A thing that didn't work so well for me was the way in which Una's tale is intersected with the story of others. I don't want to say too much about them because spoilers, but the back-and-forth isn't very smooth. The transitions between storylines feel very abrupt and thereby frequently interrupt the tension Jónasson is building in Una's tale. The various storylines also don't tie up very well towards the end so it kind of left me hanging at the end of the book. Victoria Cribb does a brilliant job as a translator, however, really bringing to life the starkness of Jónasson's style and landscapes.

I give this novel...

3 Universes!

While I did enjoy The Girl Who Died, some of Jónasson's choices didn't entirely work for me. However, his style and feel for tension does make me eager to read more works by him.