The small community of Akranes is devastated when a young man dies in a mysterious house fire, and when Detective Elma and her colleagues from West Iceland CID discover the fire was arson, they become embroiled in an increasingly perplexing case involving multiple suspects. What’s more, the dead man’s final online search raises fears that they could be investigating not one murder, but two.
A few months before the fire, a young Dutch woman takes a job as an au pair in Iceland, desperate to make a new life for herself after the death of her father. But the seemingly perfect family who employs her turns out to have problems of its own and she soon discovers she is running out of people to turn to.
As the police begin to home in on the truth, Elma, already struggling to come to terms with a life-changing event, finds herself in mortal danger as it becomes clear that someone has secrets they’ll do anything to hide…
🔥🔥🔥🔥.5
Hi and welcome to my review of Night Shadows!
Night Shadows is the third Forbidden Iceland thriller / police procedural after The Creak on the Stairs and Girls Who Lie. If you really want to, I do believe you can jump into the series here, just know you’d be missing out on two fantastic thrillers. I’ve been with this series from the start and it was such a pleasure to head back to Iceland and visit Elma again.
Night Shadows finds Elma dealing with some personal stuff, and a particularly tough case to boot. There’s been a fire in which a young man died and before long, the police find out it was arson and the victim might have been murdered. The investigation leads to a seemingly unrelated family and their Dutch au pair.
If you decide to read Night Shadows, which I recommend you do, I would suggest you don’t try to figure things out. Seriously, I tried and it did my head in! You know you’re reading a great police procedural and you’re fully invested in the proceedings when you stop reading after every other paragraph to discuss the case with yourself. Maybe it was so and so? But surely that’s too obvious? Ooh! Maybe X did Y and then Z happened? Do things add up then though? 🤔🧐🥴🤪🤯
I was hearing voices and they all pointed in another direction. In the end, I did get a few things right, but considering the fact I had half of Akranes on my suspect list, getting a few things right is frankly not that impressive.
Once again Eva Björg Ægisdóttir has woven an intricate tale that burns steadily throughout the pages and positively roars towards the finale. Cleverly plotted, dropping hints along the way, Night Shadows is a great addition to a series I can’t wait to get back to. Recommended.
Night Shadows is out in digital formats and paperback on the 21st of July. Preorder it directly from Orenda Books here.
Huge thanks to Orenda Books for the eARC. All opinions are my own.
I didn’t know there was a new book coming out! I loved the first two of this series, so I will definitely be adding this one to my wishlist now. Fab review! xx