Ok so this book looks and reads like it should be a crime thriller, and yes I suppose it is.
Magnus is a police office newly returned to Iceland from a spell in America, there's a film crew doing a viking documentary and we're given a great impression of Iceland as a quaint country, with varied people and an interesting past. Then people start being killed.
Whilst this all sounds good as a plot I actually found the crime thriller part of the book to be sadly lacking, the characters didn't really grab me and the plot takes a long time to get moving.
You don't really get a clear grasp of the investigation or the vitcim as you'd expect from this kind of novel.
Now I can hear you wondering, why 3 stars then?
Because the level of detail in Mr Ridpath's descriptions of Iceland and the fascinating. And as someone who knew nothing about the vikings in Greenland I found myself immensely enjoying what was really suppose to be the sub-plot, and how the intricacies of that slowly converge with the murder investigations.
The whole,who first discovered America is a interesting debate and in this story it is explored in an understandable and intriguing way,even to someone who had never heard it.
I actually put the book down at the end of certain sections and googled some of the Viking history bits, but didn't have a massive inclination to pick it back up and continue finding out about the murder of a student.
It's a shame but I do feel the crime thriller bit was a let down because you can see how much work and effort the author put into this.
I may be saying a slight discredit, there are some twists and suspicions and you certainly can't tell who did it for most of the novel, but that didn't really keep me engaged .Whilst the history and the premise of a controversial documentary did.
Magnus is a police office newly returned to Iceland from a spell in America, there's a film crew doing a viking documentary and we're given a great impression of Iceland as a quaint country, with varied people and an interesting past. Then people start being killed.
Whilst this all sounds good as a plot I actually found the crime thriller part of the book to be sadly lacking, the characters didn't really grab me and the plot takes a long time to get moving.
You don't really get a clear grasp of the investigation or the vitcim as you'd expect from this kind of novel.
Now I can hear you wondering, why 3 stars then?
Because the level of detail in Mr Ridpath's descriptions of Iceland and the fascinating. And as someone who knew nothing about the vikings in Greenland I found myself immensely enjoying what was really suppose to be the sub-plot, and how the intricacies of that slowly converge with the murder investigations.
The whole,who first discovered America is a interesting debate and in this story it is explored in an understandable and intriguing way,even to someone who had never heard it.
I actually put the book down at the end of certain sections and googled some of the Viking history bits, but didn't have a massive inclination to pick it back up and continue finding out about the murder of a student.
It's a shame but I do feel the crime thriller bit was a let down because you can see how much work and effort the author put into this.
I may be saying a slight discredit, there are some twists and suspicions and you certainly can't tell who did it for most of the novel, but that didn't really keep me engaged .Whilst the history and the premise of a controversial documentary did.