Cover Reveal: THE GIRL WHO DIED by Ragnar Jonasson
Coming May 2021
If you’ve been around Crime by the Book for a while, you will already know what a huge fan I am of Icelandic crime writer Ragnar Jonasson. Thanks to Ragnar’s US publisher, Minotaur, I am beyond excited to be able to exclusively reveal the cover for Ragnar’s first standalone crime novel, THE GIRL WHO DIED—publishing in the US in May 2021!
Ragnar Jonasson has earned worldwide acclaim thanks to his two superb series: the Dark Iceland series, featuring a police officer named Ari Thor who lives in the remote town of Siglufjordur (first book: SNOWBLIND), and the Hidden Iceland trilogy, an inventive crime trilogy that is told backwards chronologically, following Hulda, a police officer in Reykjavik (first book: THE DARKNESS). Ragnar’s crime fiction blends the atmosphere of Iceland with classic crime influences drawn from Ragnar’s own love of Golden Age detective novels. When I’m in the mood to “armchair travel” to Iceland and get wrapped up in a clever and compelling mystery, Ragnar’s crime novels are my go-to. In 2021, Ragnar will publish his very first standalone crime novel: THE GIRL WHO DIED. Unlike Ragnar’s series installments, which typically follow police officers and involve a police procedural thread, THE GIRL WHO DIED seems to be leaning more heavily into the psychological suspense realm, and I cannot wait to see what Ragnar does with this new story. Bonus: THE GIRL WHO DIED sounds like it has some seriously creepy elements to it, too, which makes me even more excited to read it.
Read on to view the book’s beautiful cover, learn more about the plot, and check out Ragnar’s previous series while you’re at it!
COVER REAL: THE GIRL WHO DIED
By Ragnar Jonasson
About THE GIRL WHO DIED:
Teacher wanted on the edge of the world.
Una, thirty, single and struggling to make ends meet in Reykjavík, feels her life is going nowhere, so when a job teaching two young girls is advertised in the tiny village of Skálar, she sees it as a chance to escape her dead-end existence and the tragedy that overshadows her past.
Needless to say, the job turns out not to be the dream solution Una had hoped for. Skálar is bleak and, apart from her landlady Salka and an attractive bearded young man called Thór, the locals are mostly an unfriendly bunch. When she learns that her attic flat is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a little girl, she begins to suffer from bad dreams – if they are dreams.
It becomes increasingly clear that there’s something wrong at Skálar when one of Una's students dies. As Una closes in on the truth, learning the shocking story of how the ghostly little girl, Thrá, came to die in 1927 and how the villagers closed ranks to protect the culprit, she is galvanized by a sense of moral duty. Una is determined to expose the villagers’ lies and obtain justice for the innocent.
The Girl Who Died is Jonasson's first standalone thriller. A departure from the police procedural series that made him famous, this book will reach a whole new audience and broaden the established author's appeal.
Pre-Order THE GIRL WHO DIED:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound
Plus: Check Out Ragnar Jonasson’s Crime Fiction Series!
The Dark Iceland Series
For Readers Who Love:
Small-town, chilling settings
Slow-burning mysteries
Crime novels with police officers as the protagonists
Where to Start:
The Dark Iceland series is best read in order to experience the full character development of series protagonist Ari Thor. Start reading this series with SNOWBLIND—an Icelandic mystery that puts a fresh spin on a “locked room”-style mystery. In SNOWBLIND, a small Icelandic town is entirely cut off from the rest of the country when a snowstorm blocks off the one road leading into and out of the town. When a woman is found dead during the storm under suspicious circumstances, it’s up to young police officer Ari Thor to investigate. This slow-burning mystery illustrates Ragnar’s clever plotting and love of classic crime fiction. Readers who love Golden Age detective novels will love SNOWBLIND.
The Hidden Iceland Trilogy
(My personal favorite!)
For Readers Who Love:
Strong, compelling female protagonists
Inventive storytelling structures (this trilogy is told backwards!)
A blend of psychological suspense and police procedural
Where to Start:
Due to its unique structure, the Hidden Iceland Trilogy should be read in order (though in a recent interview, Ragnar also mentioned that he thinks it might work well to read the trilogy backwards, for readers who want to experiment!). Start with Book 1, THE DARKNESS. The Hidden Iceland books are written in reverse chronological order, meaning that THE DARKNESS introduces readers to protagonist Hulda at the end of her career with the police force in Reykjavik. In the second book in the trilogy, readers meet Hulda in the middle of her career, and in the trilogy’s final installment, they witness Hulda as a relative newcomer to the police force. Over the course of this trilogy, Hulda’s personal life becomes as much of a source of intrigue to readers as do the cases she solves in each book—it will be clear to readers from the outset that Hulda is a person who has survived much tragedy in her life, and readers will find themselves deeply invested in understanding her backstory. Each trilogy installment delivers a compelling mystery for readers to solve alongside Hulda, but the greatest selling point of this series for me came in the mystery of Hulda herself. I highly recommend this trilogy!
Are you a Ragnar Jonasson fan? Excited for his new standalone novel? I’d love to hear from you! And as always, if you have any questions about his work, please let me know! xx A
Nordic Noir fans, listen up: if you’re not already reading the Blix and Ramm series, add it to your to-read pile immediately. Co-written by powerhouse Norwegian crime writers Thomas Enger and Jørn Lier Horst, the Blix and Ramm series merges the best of its authors’ crime writing strengths to deliver a gripping blend of realistic procedural elements and character-driven, emotional suspense. Out last month in e-book and coming soon in paperback, the latest installment, UNHINGED, takes this already-excellent series to the next level. In UNHINGED, protagonists Alexander Blix and Emma Ramm face their most personal case yet when one of their colleagues is targeted in an execution-style killing. UNHINGED pushes this series’ endearing characters to their breaking points in a thrilling plot that is both gripping and deeply heartfelt. I do recommend reading at least this series’ first installment (Death Deserved) before diving into UNHINGED; while the case itself here is stand-alone, much of this story’s impact relies on our connection to its characters, and having a bit of background exposure to them will make readers all the more invested in their fates. Fans of Lars Kepler, Stefan Ahnhem, and Søren Sveistrup won’t want to miss this top-notch Nordic thriller series.