Features

Interview: Arnaldur Indridason

Arnaldur Indridason’s excellent novel Strange Shores concluded with his main detective, Erlendur, out in the mountains of Eastern Iceland contemplating his own death and that of his younger brother who was lost in a blizzard when they were children. Though the ending is ambiguous, it does…
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Book Club

Snowblind

Our thirst for Scandinavian gloom, death and despair remains unquenched. Ragnar Jónasson takes us to the bleak and suitably isolated town of Siglufjörđur, about as far north-west as it is possible to go in Iceland without falling into the icy waters of the Denmark Strait….
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KindlePrintReviews

Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson

Translated by Quentin Bates — What expectations do you find yourself harbouring when you pick up a Scandinavian crime novel? Nordic noir is the term that comes to mind. Cold, dark winters, sombre landscapes, a lonely male detective and a plot throbbing with despair and…
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iBookKindleReviews

Summerchill by Quentin Bates

What do you do if you’re a Scandibrit writer and you’re told that  Scandinavian crime stories always seem to take place in the winter months? Well, if you’re Quentin Bates, you decide to set your next book during the height of summer. That all too…
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Features

Interview: Ragnar Jonasson

There has been quite a buzz building up about the young Icelandic author Ragnar Jonasson. The first of his novels to be translated into English, Snowblind, landed in the top 10 ebooks on Amazon, and went to the top of the Scandinavian crime fiction chart. It brings…
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Features

Interview: Quentin Bates

Quentin Bates moved to Iceland at the end of the 1970s for a gap year which turned into a gap decade, merrily acquiring a new language, family and profession over there. As well as being a commercial fishing expert, he is the author of a series…
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