The Island

The first book in the Hidden Iceland series, The Darkness, was the best book I read in 2018. I love how Jónasson begins this series with the end of the main character's career and has each successive book go further back in time. Reading about a life lived backward makes a reader more aware of the formation of personality traits that make Hulda the person she is.

In The Island, we learn more about Hulda's family background, which involves her making a long journey. I find her character almost hypnotic. Her life has been a series of heartbreaks-- from family losses to her fight against misogynistic males in the Icelandic police force. The case she's working on now could very well make her even more unpopular with her fellow police show more officers, but something like that ceased to bother her long ago. For Hulda, it's all about finding justice for those who have lost their lives and for those left behind. Hulda never says "the body" or "the victim." To her, a person's death does not strip them of their humanity. If she makes a mistake, she's angry-- for the victim, not herself. She knows that her mistakes can slow down not only justice but closure for grieving families, too.

The Island shows just how important doing the job right and bringing closure to families is, especially in Jónasson's depiction of what happened to Dagur's family in the years after the events in 1987.

Poised against the grimness of Hulda's investigation is the beauty of summer in Iceland. Reading Jónasson's books is a delight because of the knowledge readers gain about Iceland, its people, customs, and landscape-- and when you add to that the strength of the stories he tells and the mesmerizing characters he creates, you've got an unbeatable combination.

Jónasson has written two mystery series. If you're a newcomer to his work, you can't go wrong by reading either series. Chances are, once you've read one, you're going to want to read all of his books. They're fantastic. show less

"The Island" was a deeply satisfying read. The writing is sparse but confident, delivering movement between multiple points of view and backwards and forwards across multiple timelines so seamlessly that there is never any confusion, only a growing sense of tension as the plot is revealed.


The way in which the plot is revealed is innovative without being gimmicky. Ragnor Jonasson offers the reader different views of a complex pattern that we know will come together like a beautiful piece of lace and invites us to guess the design as he turns a piece of it in front of us. He presents a person and a set of events, bringing them into vivid focus, and then moves on, repeating the process but with people and situations that don't show more immediately seem to be linked to the last point of focus. A lot of the fun comes from holding these points in your mind and trying to connect them before Jonasson does it for you.


"The Island" is more than a clever plot. It is the story of people whose lives are ruined by an act of violence. I liked the fact that it was not the act but its consequences that Jonasson focused on. He shows us people in pain because of guilt, shame, and grief. He makes that pain real, not to celebrate the pain but to build empathy with the people suffering. This is less a whodunnit and more a look-what-happens-when-this-is-done.


It is a sad book, filled with small acts of deception or greed or aggression that damage the happiness both of the person committing them and the person they are committed against. It's a bok where the quiet struggle with despair is always present.


"The Island" is the second book in the "Hiden Iceland" series, which started with "The Darkness". The main character in both books is Reykjavík police detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir. In "The Darkness" Hulda was sixty-four and approaching retirement. At the start of the events in "The Island", she is forty. I was curious to see how this technique of revealing Hulda's life backwards would work, Jonasson makes it into more than a marketing trick. He uses is to deepen the sadness of the book. Knowing how Hulda's career ends and how she felt about her life when she was sixty-four adds poignancy to how she spends the decade this story extends over.


I'm now looking forward to the next book, "The Mist" which will be released in English next year.


I listened to the audiobook version of "The Island" which was narrated by Amanda Redman. I recommend it to you show less

This series has an interesting format in that it’s written in reverse order. Book #1 (The Darkness) gave us Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir at the end of her career with the Reykjavík police. In this outing we go back a bit to 1997 as she investigates a suspicious death on the island of Elliðaey.

Ten years ago, Dagur’s family was ripped apart when his sister was murdered in a rural cabin. (Thanks to a brief prologue we know what happened…sort of.) They used to hang with Benni, Alexandra & Klara, 3 other school mates who have since become estranged. So when Benni gets in touch it’s a bit of a surprise. He want to get the gang together & spend the weekend on an island to honour the anniversary of the death. show more Hmmm….remote island, just the four of them, no way to leave. Sure, sounds good.

It’s not long before Reykjavík police get a call. Seems a young woman has fallen to her death on Elliðaey. Hulda has been going through a tough spell & jumps at the chance to leave the city behind. Her subsequent interviews with the remaining friends only lead to more questions & the sneaking suspicion she’s not getting the whole story from any of them.

This is not a flashy fast paced thriller. It’s a quiet, reflective mystery that is almost more about the characters than the crimes. Not to say there aren’t any twists in the plot because there are. Secrets from the past & present are revealed. But it’s the background & relationships of these people that form the bulk of the story & help us understand how they ended up where they are.

At the centre of it all is Hulda. Her mother recently died & the death of the young woman has reminded her of the loss of her own daughter 10 years ago. She’s never known who her father was other than he was an American GI stationed in Reykjavík during the war. One side story deals with her search for him & I really enjoyed this part. You desperately want her to find some happiness in her small, colourless life.

I love it when a book opens with a creepy prologue. It’s always tucked in the back of my mind as I read, keeping an eye out for how/who it’s related to in the story. Here we get 2 that occur in the late 1980’s & you’ll have to pay attention as there are shifting time lines. Because of the pace & content, this one didn’t grab me as much as The Darkness. But I do enjoy spending time with Hulda. Books that feature a mature female detective are rare. Her life experience & dedication give her a different take on events & enable her to think outside the box (unlike Lýdur, her lazy pompous boss).

This hushed, atmospheric read perfectly mirrors the Icelandic landscape & serves as a reminder that wherever you go, your past travels with you. show less

This is book 2 of the Hulda trilogy by Ragnar Jonasson. The Island was an entertaining read. The characters are likeable and the story was interesting. I was quite surprised as I did not like book 1: The Darkness. The storyline of that one was terribly boring and I didn’t care for Hulda. Book 2 is set before book 1 regarding the case of two murders set ten years apart with relation to the same people. The island is an ominous and treacherous place, however people like to visit and mysterious things happen.

I like all of the characters except for the main character. Each character has their own personality, roles, and develop well during the story. I like the twists in the book and how it has multiple events that keep the book moving. show more No slow parts and comes together nicely.

I don’t like Hulda, unfortunately I think she’s quite drab and her life is quite boring. She also doesn’t seem to have much of a personality, I wish the author would give her a little bit of spunk. I’m also not a fan that the trilogy is not in chronological order. Book 2 is set before book 1. Wonder if book 3 is set before book 2. Oh bother.

★★★★ It’s worth a read. I actually think I would recommend skipping book 1 and going directly to this one. show less

Best for:
Fans of Icelandic crime books.

In a nutshell:
Ten years ago, a woman died. Someone went to jail for that murder. Ten years later, friends get together to commemorate the death, and another person dies. This time, the friends are literally on a deserted island, so … it’s gotta be one of them. Right?

Worth quoting:
N/A

Why I chose it:
This is the second in the Hidden Iceland series. I enjoyed the first one. Plus at this point I’ll read basically anything by Ragnar Jónasson.

Review:
This book takes place roughly 20 years before The Darkness. It’s an interesting way to write a series (and the final book apparently takes place 40 years before The Darkness), but it worked in this case. It starts in 1988, with a vignette that will show more later become relevant. There is a death, an investigation, and ultimately an arrest. The bulk of the book takes place in 1998, 10 years to the weekend of the anniversary of that death. And, once again, someone dies.

Hulda Hermannsdóttir is the main investigator on the second death, and some of what we know about Hulda from the first (but chronologically later) book comes into play here, but you don’t have to have read the first book to understand this one. Hulda is a middle-aged woman trying to make it in a very male profession, and has some frustrating encounters with her colleagues.

Obviously as a crime book I can’t say much more, but I will say that that first vignette had me guessing for a bit as to who the first victim was, which was a nice little addition to the overall main focus of the book, which is what happened to the second victim. As an added bonus, the setting for the second death is a real island off the south coast of Iceland. An island with literally just one building.

Yeah, I’d probably pass on a trip out there…

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend show less

The Island is Ragnar Jónasson’s second book in his Hulda Hermannsdottir trilogy, a trilogy comprised of: The Darkness, The Island, and The Mist. Hulda is a detective in the Reykjavik Police department who, mostly because of her gender, still feels like a department outsider despite all her years on the force. Often, I would be pointing out about now that this second book in the series picks up right from where the first one left off, but the opposite is true of the Hulda series. Hulda’s life story is told in reverse, and that is a large part of what makes the three books so intriguing to those of us who love crime and thriller fiction so much.

The Island begins with the recounting of a romantic trip taken by a two teens to the show more remote summer house belonging to the girl’s father. The two go to the house in October when it is already very cold, so the area is even more deserted than it normally is when they are there, meaning that the terrible thing that happens in the house will go unnoticed for several days.

Next, we flash forward ten years to 1987 to find a group of friends getting together in a remote hunting lodge on an island off the coast of Iceland. The two young men and two young women had been best friends as teens, and they are hoping now to reconnect in some meaningful way. The problem is that one of them will not leave the island alive — and that they are the only four people there when the death happens. Cue one Hulda Hermannsdottir who is, as she always is when investigating a crime, doggedly determined to find out what happened on that very first night the four young people were together. Then, after recognizing a potential link between the death in 1977 and the one in 1987 Hulda senses a way finally to get the credit that she deserves as a first-rate crime investigator. And if what she discovers proves once and for all that one of her colleagues should never have been promoted over her head, so much the better.

Bottom Line: The Island adds a considerable amount of detail to Hulda’s backstory, including what she learns, and doesn’t learn, about herself on a side trip she makes to America to connect with an aging World War II veteran. But the most fascinating thing here is how reading about Hulda’s life and aspirations while already knowing how everything turns out for her, enables the reader to know what it must feel like to be able to see into the future. So do keep in mind that in order to experience the Hulda series at its best, the three books most definitely need to be read (at least the first time around) in the order in which they were published. show less

The Hidden Iceland series features Hulda Hermannsdottir, which I learnt in this book can mean "daughter of Herman" or "daughter of a soldier" - Hulda was born to an Icelandic woman and a US soldier. Now a detective towards the end of her career she investigates the death of a young woman on an isolated island, and its links to a historic case ten years before, of another young woman. This book was very bleak indeed, Hulda's life is awful even by literary detective standards. I didn't guess who had done it right up until the big reveal though, so...

(A netgalley book)