The Girl Who Died

December 1, 2020

Haines's Independent Bones features PI Sarah Booth Delaney, caught up with protecting a visiting professor of Greek literature at Ole Miss whose radical feminism may have sparked murder (40,000-copy first printing). In Jonasson's latest, Una is teaching in a remote Icelandic village when she discovers dark secrets the polite if distant villages have kept hidden for generations--perhaps involving The Girl Who Died (50,000-copy first printing). A peasant girl is murdered in a northern Chinese village, and exiled inspector Lu Fei takes the case in Klingborg's Thief of Souls (75,000-copy first printing). Brought back by Lupica in 2018, PI Sunny Randall investigates the suicide of best friend Spike's 20-year old niece in Robert B. Parker's Payback. In 1910, a senior barrister is found dead in a notorious London slum, and junior barrister Daniel Pitt endangers his family by investigating in Perry's Death with a Double Edge. In Walker's The Coldest Case, applying the facial reconstruction tools used on ancient skulls to the skull of a long-dead murder victim leads Bruno, chief of police in fictional town in the Dordogne, to the activities of a Cold War-era Communist organization. With A Peculiar Combination, Louisiana librarian Weaver detours from her beloved Amory Ames books to launch a new series starring Electra "Ellie" McDonnell, who cracks safes with locksmith uncle Mick to make ends meet in World War II England and agrees to help the government when she's caught (40,000-copy first printing).

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February 15, 2021
J�nasson transports a Reykjav�k teacher to a job in faraway Sk�lar, where she falls under the spell of the place. It's not a good spell. "Teacher wanted at the edge of the world" announces the advertisement that lures Una, barely scraping by in her humdrum job, to the Langanes Peninsula at the northeastern tip of Iceland. The town has a population of 10, two of whom need a teacher. Upon her arrival, Una settles into the attic in the house of Salka, whose daughter, Edda, 7, is one of her pupils. The other girl, Kolbr�n, is two years older and a good deal harder to reach, maybe because her mother, Inga, is standoffish and her father, the fisherman Kolbeinn, is an indiscriminate flirt. But the girl who gradually comes to overshadow both Una's pupils is Thr�, who died 60 years ago but who repeatedly, wordlessly appears to Una--and perhaps to other villagers as well, even if they won't admit it. When one of her two students marks the end of their Christmas concert by collapsing on the church floor and dying of liver failure, Una feels her status in Sk�lar crumbling, a process that swiftly accelerates when she calls the Reykjavik police to tell them that she's recognized the missing Patrekur Kristj�nsson as someone who turned up at Salka's door looking for Hj�rd�s, who owns the local guesthouse. So why won't Salka back up her identification? Why does fishery owner Guffi, the closest thing to a power broker in town, threaten her over what she's done? And what does all this have to do with the long-dead Thr�? An atmospheric, authentically shivery ghost story with criminal trimmings.

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Starred review from May 1, 2021
Una, dissatisfied with her life in Reykjavik, Iceland, embraces the adventure of a teaching post in Sk�lar, a remote northern village with only 10 residents. Salka, a writer who is determined to secure a trained teacher for her daughter, Ebba, has convinced the village's de facto mayor to bring in a newcomer. Una learns quickly that being offered the job doesn't translate to a warm welcome. Nevertheless, she sets about adjusting to the villagers' insularity and pursues a friendship with Thor, a farmhand who's also fairly new to Sk�lar. Then a rough-edged stranger turns up, looking for Thor's boss, Hj�rd�s, and Salka's reaction is strangely paranoid. Later, Una discovers that Thor has been reported missing and makes a decision that casts her as even more of an outsider. The villagers, she learns, look after each other, no matter what. This stand-alone, a mist-shrouded blend of horror and psychological thriller, works in every way. The isolated village and the pre-smartphone 1980s setting create a sense of claustrophobia that combines with the villagers' secrecy and the hint of supernatural elements to infuse strong foreboding throughout what is ultimately revealed to be a story about trust. A draw for J�nasson's growing fan base, along with fans of Jennifer McMahon, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, and Camilla L�ckberg.

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