Last Rituals

Title: Last Rituals

Author: Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Number of pages: 432

Opening words:

The head caretaker, Tryggvi, stood idly by the coffee maker. The sound of boiling water dripping through the machine was the only thing to be heard in the empty building, which housed the university’s History department. Soon the bustling cleaners would arrive, chatting and giggling, dragging their carts and vacuums out of the housekeeping room. The caretaker revelled in the silence and the aroma of brewing coffee. He had been employed by the university for over thirty years and had seen his share of changes, not the least of which was the complete turnaround in the nationality of the cleaners who worked under his supervision. When he started they had all been Icelandic and understood his every word; now his interactions with his subordinates consisted of a series of hand gestures and loudly-spoken basic orders. The women were all immigrants, and all recent arrivals from south-east Asia, except for one woman of African descent.
Until the faculty members and students arrived for the day, he might as well have been working in Bangkok.

What’s it about?

A young man is found brutally murdered, his eyes gouged out. A student of Icelandic history in Reykjavik, he came from a wealthy German family who do not share the police's belief that his drug dealer murdered him. Attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir is commissioned by his family to find out the truth, with the help - and hindrance - of boorish ex-policeman Matthew Reich. Their investigations into his research take them deep into a grisly world of torture and witchcraft both past and present, as they draw ever closer to a killer gripped by a dangerous obsession...

What I thought:

Scandinavian crime novels are somewhat in vogue at the moment, although primarily Swedish (the most well know probably being Stieg Larsson) and some Norwegian books (such as Jo Nesbo). It is debateable whether Iceland is actually a Scandinavian country (the main reason it gets included as one is because Iceland used to be part of Denmark, and Denmark is part of Scandinavia), but regardless of this, the style of Icelandic crime novels bears a strong resemblance to the main Scandinavian genre, so if you like that genre Icelandic books are worth a go.

I got into reading Icelandic books when I went to Iceland a couple of years ago and have read several since. The plot of Last Rituals revolved around a murder that the police believed they had already solved, but the victim’s family, who the victim didn’t get on with, believed otherwise. Throw in a bit of witchcraft, a dash of humour and the (literary) darkness you would expect from this style of novel and that gives a sense of what this book is about. Don’t expect a high body count. The story is based around that one death and the subsequent investigation into the circumstances, but that means more depth and allows some of the groundwork to be laid for the rest of the series of these books.

I thought it was an interesting idea for a novel, although it did not deliver an entirely satisfying novel. I like a book that strays away from the Hollywood blockbuster type read and this was a decent start to a readable series.

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