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Blackout: Dark Iceland #3    by Ragnar Jonasson Amazon.com order for
Blackout
by Ragnar Jonasson
Order:  USA  Can
Minotaur, 2018 (2018)
Hardcover, Softcover, CD, e-Book
* *   Reviewed by Hilary Williamson

Blackout (translated by Quentin Bates) is the third in Ragnar Jonasson's Dark Iceland series, starring young police officer Ari Thor Arason, whom we've followed since he accepted a job in northern Iceland's remote fishing village of Siglufjordur. As mystery leads often do, Ari Thor wrestles with demons - his mother's death and father's disappearance when he was thirteen. Events in Blackout follow those in Snowblind, the first book in the series, in time.

The investigation begins after an Ohio art history student, on his first visit to Iceland, finds a corpse in 'one of the safest places on earth', next to a summer house under construction. The dead man was a skilled workman named Elias. The man who hired him was more interesting - a disgraced physician whose love affair with the bottle took patients' lives. In parallel with the police investigation, psychologist/tv news reporter Isrun does some digging of her own, and goes to some trouble to be assigned to the case - why?

As all this develops, Ari Thor still hankers after his former fiancee Kristin. A medical student, she seems to be playing the field, which arouses his jealousy. His police colleague Hlynur seems to be losing his edge, depressed over threatening emails he has been receiving that bring back old regrets. There are all kinds of dark secrets in these Icelanders' pasts, but only a few bear any relation to the murder. Evidence is uncovered of money laundering, serious abuse of children at a holiday camp, and human trafficking.

The latter results in a race against time to save a beautiful young woman brought from Nepal, but not for the hotel work she was promised. Only Elias knew where he had left her, and her food and water have run out. Readers share what she's going through and hope for her survival. If you like your police procedurals noir, then you'll enjoy Ragnar Jonasson's Dark Iceland mysteries.

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