Books by Ragnar Jónasson
The Darkness: A Thriller (The Hulda Series, 1)
Spanning the icy streets of Reykjavik, the Icelandic highlands and cold, isolated fjords, The Darkness is an atmospheric thriller from Ragnar Jonasson, one of the most exciting names in Nordic Noir.
The body of a young Russian woman washes up on an Icelandic shore. After a cursory investigation, the death is declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed.
Over a year later Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police is forced into early retirement at 64. She dreads the loneliness, and the memories of her dark past that threaten to come back to haunt her. But before she leaves she is given two weeks to solve a single cold case of her choice. She knows which one: the Russian woman whose hope for asylum ended on the dark, cold shore of an unfamiliar country. Soon Hulda discovers that another young woman vanished at the same time, and that no one is telling her the whole story. Even her colleagues in the police seem determined to put the brakes on her investigation. Meanwhile the clock is ticking.
Hulda will find the killer, even if it means putting her own life in danger.
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The Island: A Thriller (The Hulda Series, 2)
The newest superstar on the Icelandic crime fiction scene has arrived with a superb followup to The Darkness.
Shortlisted for the Crime Novel of the Year Award in Iceland
Third Place, Novel of the Year Award 2016 in Iceland, selected by booksellers
One of the bestselling novels in Iceland in 2016
Autumn of 1987 takes a young couple on a romantic trip in the Westfjords holiday―a trip that gets an unexpected ending and has catastrophic consequences.
Ten years later a small group of friends go for a weekend in an old hunting lodge in Elliðaey. A place completely cut off from the outside world, to reconnect. But one of them isn't going to make it out alive. And Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is determined to find the truth in the darkness.
Ragnar Jonasson burst onto the American scene with Snowblind and Nightblind, the first two novels in the Ari Thor thriller series, and the praise was overwhelming. With The Darkness, he launched a new series featuring a completely new sleuth, Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdottir of the Reykjavik Police department. The Island is the second book in this series.
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The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer: A Mystery
The next thrilling golden-age-style mystery from #1 Icelandic bestseller Ragnar Jónasson, author of Death at the Sanatorium and Reykjavík.
One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing.
There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before its leaked to the press.
As Helgi interviews the people closest to her―a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge―he realizes that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote.
As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of the writer's very unexpected life.
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$29.00
Outside
by Jennifer L. Holm, Barry Lopez, Deirdre Gill, Ragnar Jónasson
In this gentle picture book fantasy, a child’s world transforms through his hard work, imagination, and persistence when he opens the door and steps outside, into to the brave new world of his imagination.
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Outside
by Jennifer L. Holm, Barry Lopez, Deirdre Gill, Ragnar Jónasson
With three million copies of his books sold worldwide, "world-class crime writer"(The Sunday Times, UK) Ragnar Jónasson brings us a chilling new standalone thriller with Outside.
Four friends. One night. Not everyone will come out alive . . .
When a deadly snowstorm strikes the Icelandic highlands, four friends seek shelter in a small, abandoned hunting lodge.
It is in the middle of nowhere and there's no way of communicating with the outside world.
They are isolated, but they are not alone . . .
As the night darkens, and fears intensify, an old tragedy gradually surfaces - one that forever changed the course of their friendship.
Those dark memories could hold the key to the mystery the friends now find themselves in.
And whether they will survive until morning . . .
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No copies available.
Outside
by Jennifer L. Holm, Barry Lopez, Deirdre Gill, Ragnar Jónasson
With three million copies of his books sold worldwide, "world-class crime writer"(The Sunday Times, UK) Ragnar Jónasson brings us a chilling new standalone thriller with Outside.
Four friends. One night. Not everyone will come out alive . . .
When a deadly snowstorm strikes the Icelandic highlands, four friends seek shelter in a small, abandoned hunting lodge.
It is in the middle of nowhere and there's no way of communicating with the outside world.
They are isolated, but they are not alone . . .
As the night darkens, and fears intensify, an old tragedy gradually surfaces - one that forever changed the course of their friendship.
Those dark memories could hold the key to the mystery the friends now find themselves in.
And whether they will survive until morning . . .
Copies
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$18.00
Outside
by Jennifer L. Holm, Barry Lopez, Deirdre Gill, Ragnar Jónasson
From three-time Newbery Honor winner Jennifer L. Holm, a chilling but heartfelt story of a girl being raised in a compound who doesn't understand how isolated and unusual her life is... until she must encounter the outside world.
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$17.99
Outside
by Jennifer L. Holm, Barry Lopez, Deirdre Gill, Ragnar Jónasson
The six stories in Outside showcase Barry Lopez’s majestic talent as a fiction writer. Lopez writes in spare prose, but his narratives resonate with an uncanny power. With a reverence for our exterior and interior landscapes, these stories offer profound insight into the relationships between humans and animals, creativity and beauty, and, ultimately, life and death. Again and again, whether describing a Navajo rug possessing the essence of its maker, a boy who can change places with his half-coyote dog (named Leaves), or a teacher whose presence brings into question the meaning of friendship, Lopez portrays elemental and sacred places. His prose transcends its simplicity to enter spaces of wonder and mystery. As James Perrin Warren says in his compelling introduction, Lopez’s narrators bear witness to extraordinary patterns and purposes . . . The storyteller is vital to the community and to a healthy landscape, but the vital relationship is also reciprocal. . . . We participate, along with Lopez, in the long history of storytelling. We become part of the atmosphere in which wisdom shows itself.”
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Death at the Sanatorium: A Mystery
Fresh off his career-changing standalone co-written with Icelandic PM, Reykjavík, #1 Icelandic bestseller Jonasson presents a riveting new thriller spinoff from The Darkness, soon to be a TV series.
1983
At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland, now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five suspects: the chief physician, two junior nurses, a young doctor, and the caretaker, who is arrested following false testimony from one of the nurses, but subsequently released.
Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician, is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir, rules his death as suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed.
2012
Almost thirty years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, but decides to return to Iceland when he is offered a job at the Reykjavik police department―the job which detective Hulda Hermannsdottir is about to retire from.
He is also a collector of golden age detective stories, and is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, and starts his new job, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn, as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.
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$29.00
Death at the Sanatorium: A Mystery
Fresh off of Reykjavik, his career-changing standalone co-written with the Icelandic prime minister, #1 Icelandic bestseller Jonasson presents a riveting new thriller.
1983
At a former sanatorium in the north of Iceland, now a hospital ward, an old nurse, Yrsa, is found murdered. Detective Hulda Hermannsdottir and her boss, Sverrir, are sent to investigate her death. There, they discover five suspects: the chief physician, two junior nurses, a young doctor, and the caretaker, who is arrested following false testimony from one of the nurses, but subsequently released.
Less than a week after the murder, the chief physician, is also found dead, having apparently fallen from a balcony. Sverrir, rules his death as suicide and assumes that he was guilty of the murder as well. The case is closed.
2012
Almost thirty years later, Helgi Reykdal, a young police officer, has been studying criminology in the UK, but decides to return to Iceland when he is offered a job at the Reykjavik police department―the job which detective Hulda Hermannsdottir is about to retire from.
He is also a collector of golden age detective stories, and is writing his thesis on the 1983 murders in the north. As Helgi delves deeper into the past, and starts his new job, he decides to try to meet with the original suspects. But soon he finds silence and suspicion at every turn, as he tries to finally solve the mystery from years before.
Copies
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$19.00
The Girl Who Died: A Thriller
THE NAIL-BITING NEW STORY FROM THE MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR
"Is this the best crime writer in the world today? If you're looking for a mystery to get lost in during lockdown..." ―The Times, UK
"A world-class crime writer...One of the most astonishing plots of modern crime fiction" ―Sunday Times, UK
"It is nothing less than a landmark in modern crime fiction." ―The Times, UK
From Ragnar Jónasson, the award-winning author of the international bestselling Ari Thór series, The Girl Who Died is a standalone thriller about a young woman seeking a new start in a secluded village where a small community is desperate to protect its secrets.
Teacher Wanted At the Edge of the World
Una wants nothing more than to teach, but she has been unable to secure steady employment in Reykjavík. Her savings are depleted, her love life is nonexistent, and she cannot face another winter staring at the four walls of her shabby apartment. Celebrating Christmas and ringing in 1986 in the remote fishing hamlet of Skálar seems like a small price to pay for a chance to earn some teaching credentials and get her life back on track.
But Skálar isn’t just one of Iceland’s most isolated villages, it is home to just ten people. Una’s only students are two girls aged seven and nine. Teaching them only occupies so many hours in a day and the few adults she interacts with are civil but distant. She only seems to connect with Thór, a man she shares an attraction with but who is determined to keep her at arm’s length.
As darkness descends throughout the bleak winter, Una finds herself more often than not in her rented attic space―the site of a local legendary haunting―drinking her loneliness away. She is plagued by nightmares of a little girl in a white dress singing a lullaby. And when a sudden tragedy echoes an event long buried in Skálar’s past, the villagers become even more guarded, leaving a suspicious Una seeking to uncover a shocking truth that’s been kept secret for generations.
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Reykjavík: A Crime Story
by Ragnar Jónasson, Katrín Jakobsdóttir
With over four million copies sold worldwide, Ragnar Jónasson, along with Katrín Jakobsdóttir, brings us a gripping and chilling new thriller, Reykjavík.
What happened to Lára?
Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there?
Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case. But as he draws closer to discovering the secret, and with the eyes of Reykjavík upon him, it soon becomes clear that Lára's disappearance is a mystery that someone will stop at nothing to keep unsolved . . .
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$19.00
Reykjavík: A Crime Story
by Ragnar Jónasson, Katrín Jakobsdóttir
With over four million copies sold worldwide, Ragnar Jónasson, along with Katrín Jakobsdóttir, brings us a gripping and chilling new thriller, Reykjavík.
What happened to Lára?
Iceland, 1956. Fourteen-year-old Lára decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavík. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace. Time passes, and the mystery becomes Iceland‘s most infamous unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there?
Thirty years later, as the city of Reykjavík celebrates its 200th anniversary, journalist Valur Robertsson begins his own investigation into Lára's case. But as he draws closer to discovering the secret, and with the eyes of Reykjavík upon him, it soon becomes clear that Lára's disappearance is a mystery that someone will stop at nothing to keep unsolved . . .
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$28.00
Snowblind: A Thriller (The Dark Iceland Series, 1)
Where: A quiet fishing village in northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors. It is accessible only via a small mountain tunnel.
Who: Ari Thor is a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik. He has a past that he's unable to leave behind.
What: A young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed elderly writer falls to his death. Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one, and secrets and lies are a way of life.
Past plays tag with the present and the claustrophobic tension mounts, while Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness―blinded by snow and with a killer on the loose.
Taut and terrifying, Snowblind is a startling debut from an extraordinary new talent.
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Snowblind: A Thriller (The Dark Iceland Series, 1)
Taut and terrifying, Snowblind is a startling debut from Ragnar Jónasson, an extraordinary new talent.
Where: An isolated fishing village in the fjords of northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors.
Who: Ari Thór is a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavík.
What: A young woman is found lying half naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed elderly writer falls to his death. Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one, and secrets and lies are a way of life.
*BONUS CONTENT: This edition of Snowblind includes a new introduction from the author and a discussion guide
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Nightblind: A Thriller (The Dark Iceland Series, 2)
Chilling and complex, Nightblind is an extraordinary thriller from Ragnar Jónasson, an undeniable new talent.
Ari Thor Arason is a local policeman who has an uneasy relationship with the villagers in an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland―where no one locks their doors.
The peace of this close-knit community is shattered by a murder. One of Ari’s colleagues is gunned down at point-blank range in the dead of night in a deserted house. With a killer on the loose and the dark Arctic waters closing in, it falls to Ari Thor to piece together a puzzle that involves a new mayor and a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik. It becomes all too clear that tragic events from the past are weaving a sinister spell that may threaten them all.
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Blackout: An Ari Thor Thriller (The Dark Iceland Series, 3)
A huge bestseller in England, France, and Australia, the third book in the Dark Iceland series from a spectacular new crime writer.
"Easily the best yet. Beautifully written and elegantly paced with a plot that only gradually becomes visible, as if the reader had been staring into the freezing fog waiting for shapes to emerge."―The Guardian, UK (Readers' Books of the Year 2016)
"A chiller of a thriller whose style and pace are influenced by Jónasson’s admiration for Agatha Christie. It’s good enough to share shelf space with the works of Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Arnaldur Indridason, Iceland’s crime novel royalty."―The Washington Post
Hailed for combining the darkness of Nordic Noir with classic mystery writing in the tradition of Agatha Christie, author Ragnar Jónasson’s books are haunting, atmospheric, and complex. Blackout, the latest Ari Thór thriller, delivers another dark mystery that is chillingly stunning with its complexity and fluidity.
On the shores of a tranquil fjord in Northern Iceland, a man is brutally beaten to death on a bright summer's night. As the 24-hour light of the arctic summer is transformed into darkness by an ash cloud from a recent volcanic eruption, a young reporter leaves Reykajvik to investigate on her own, unaware that an innocent person's life hangs in the balance. Ari Thor Arason and his colleagues on the tiny police force in Siglufjordur struggle with an increasingly perplexing case, while their own serious personal problems push them to the limit. What secrets does the dead man harbour, and what is the young reporter hiding? As silent, unspoken horrors from the past threaten them all, and the darkness deepens, it's a race against time to find the killer before someone else dies.
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Nightblind A Thriller
Chilling and complex, Nightblind is an extraordinary thriller from Ragnar Jonasson, an undeniable new talent.
Ari Thor Arason is a local policeman who has an uneasy relationship with the villagers in an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland—where no one locks their doors.
The peace of this close-knit community is shattered by a murder. One of Ari’s colleagues is gunned down at point-blank range in the dead of night in a deserted house. With a killer on the loose and the dark Arctic waters closing in, it falls to Ari Thor to piece together a puzzle that involves a new mayor and a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik. It becomes all too clear that tragic events from the past are weaving a sinister spell that may threaten them all.
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Birds, Strangers and Psychos New stories inspired by Alfred Hitchcock
by Lee Child, Nadine Matheson, Sophie Hannah, David Thomson, Peter Lovesey, Guy Adams, Jerome Charyn, James Grady, Ragnar Jónasson, Kim Newman, A.K. Benedict, Vaseem Khan, M.W. Craven, Anne Billson
A suspenseful, thrilling anthology of 24 original short stories inspired by the iconic works of legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, curated by acclaimed editor Maxim Jakubowski.
Featuring some of the biggest names in mystery and crime fiction, including Lee Child, Sophie Hannah, Peter Swanson, and many more!
Birds, Strangers and Psychos is a thrilling anthology that brings together the biggest names in mystery and crime fiction to pay homage to Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary filmmaker whose name is synonymous with suspense. Acclaimed editor Maxim Jakubowski curates 24 original short stories, each inspired by the mood, tension, and style that defined Hitchcock’s groundbreaking work. This anthology invites both emerging and established voices to reimagine the chilling atmospheres, twisted plots, and unforgettable characters of Hitchcock's films, from Psycho and Vertigo to North by Northwest and The Birds.
Just as Hitchcock adapted stories from literary giants like Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, and Roald Dahl, Birds, Strangers and Psychos unites today's literary stars to craft new suspenseful tales that are destined to thrill, haunt, and unsettle. These stories celebrate Hitchcock’s enduring influence, creating an anthology that serves both as a tribute and as a reminder of why Hitchcock’s legacy continues to loom so large in popular culture. This volume is not just a collection of stories – it’s an invitation to rediscover the artistry of suspense.
Each author takes on the challenge of evoking the quintessentially 'Hitchcockian' elements that have captivated audiences for decades: ordinary lives interrupted by peril, psychological duels, and unexpected encounters that spiral into nightmares. The volume showcases an extraordinary blend of talent, featuring stories from:
Lee Child
Joe R. Lansdale & Keith Lansdale
Donna Moore
James Grady
Peter Lovesey
Kim Newman
A. K. Benedict
Vaseem Khan
M. W. Craven
S. A. Cosby
Sophie Hannah
Guy Adams
Ana Teresa Pereira
Nadine Matheson
David Thomson
Jerome Charyn
Anne Billson
William Boyle
Jeff Noon
Xan Brooks
Ragnar Jonasson
Denise Mina
Lily Samson
Peter Swanson
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The Darkness A Thriller
"A bullet train of a novel, at once blazingly contemporary and Agatha-Christie old-fashioned.... I dare you not to be shocked." —Gregg Hurwitz, New York Times bestselling author
The body of a young Russian woman washes up on a remote Icelandic beach. She came looking for safety, but instead she found a watery grave.
A hasty police investigation determines her death as suicide and the case is quietly closed.
When Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavik police is forced into early retirement, she is told she can investigate one last cold case of her choice—and she knows which one. The Russian woman whose hope for asylum ended on the dark, cold shore of an unfamiliar country. Soon Hulda discovers that another young woman vanished at the same time, and that no one is telling her the whole story. Even her colleagues in the police seem determined to put the brakes on her investigation. Meanwhile the clock is ticking.
Hulda will find the killer, even if it means putting her own life in danger.
Spanning the icy streets of Reykjavik, the Icelandic highlands and cold, isolated fjords, The Darkness is the first in a new atmospheric and complex thriller series from Ragnar Jónasson, the award-winning author of the internationally bestselling Ari Thor thrillers.
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The Body in the Bath
From the author of The Mysterious Case of The Missing Crime Writer comes the next mystery featuring detective Helgi Reykdal.
When Bergþóra Úlfsdóttir, Helgi’s ex-girlfriend, is found dead in her home just before Christmas, Helgi is brought onto the case—but this time, he’s a suspect of her murder, given his complicated relationship with Bergþóra. The timing is suspicious: just before her own death, Bergþóra fatally hit Helgi’s new girlfriend, Anita, with her car, ruining the future he’d hoped to build with her.
Meanwhile, Helgi has also been looking into the disappearance of Hulda Hermannsdóttir; the woman who’d held his office before him supposedly died of suicide but Helgi remains unconvinced. As he digs into this old case, it begins to seem as though Hulda’s disappearance has more layers—layers that draw connections between Bergþóra’s and Anita’s deaths and Hulda’s disappearance.
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$29.00
The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer: A Mystery (Helgi, 2)
An Instant National Bestseller
The next thrilling golden-age-style mystery from #1 Icelandic bestseller Ragnar Jónasson, author of Death at the Sanatorium and Reykjavík.
One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing.
There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before its leaked to the press.
As Helgi interviews the people closest to her―a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge―he realizes that Elín’s life wasn’t what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote.
As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of the writer's very unexpected life.
Copies
-
$19.00