The Darkness by Ragnar Jónasson***

Reading dates: 31 December 2021 – 14 January 2022

The Darkness is the first in Jónasson’s Hidden Iceland series. I love the place and the landscape, also the story but I was not convinced by the main character who seemed to be all over the place. She was one minute very energetic and then exhausted, she showed amazing instincts and then was a poor judge of character in the same chapter. To me, Hulda did not add up. I was going to give the book only 1 start at most, for its entertainment value. But the ending is very courageous, brutal. The mystery is very interestingly resolved it and it earned it two more stars. The narrative made me consider what kinds of detectives I like. My conclusion is that my perfect detective is Sherlock Holmes, the prodigy. I like someone with incredible deductive capabilities and as many quirks as possible. And although Hulda’s background is very cleverly deployed throughout the book, she did not appear to me as a fully conceived protagonist. Or maybe not yet.