Icelandic Crime Fiction

1995: A young German woman disappears in the Westfjords of Iceland, but the case is quickly forgotten. After all, it's not uncommon for foreigners who come to Iceland to vanish, and the police are too busy investigating a fatal car accident, recovering two bodies from the cold waters of the sea. 2022: Detective Hildur Rúnarsdóttir returns from a surfing holiday in Hawaii to a good life.

The renovation of her childhood home is progressing, and her colleague and friend Jakob Johanson has permanently joined her in Iceland. But when Hildur visits her family friend, Helga, in a nursing home, she is presented with surprising new details about her mother, Rakel. Then a cruise ship carrying a large group of tourists arrives in Ísafjörður, bringing a world of trouble with them.

As the bodies pile up, Hildur and Jakob must look to the past to figure out what lies in front of them.

Tense and dark, each of these three crime books is the first in their series. There are two police procedurals by Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Finnish author Satu Rämö, and a missing person search that eventually stretches over five books by Lilja Sigurdardottir.

The titles in Gumshoe Book "where do I start" bundles are deliberately chosen to help you find new binge-worthy authors and series. 

Sometimes murder runs in the family. Or so the police think...

When a well-known artist is found in Snorri’s Pool with an axe buried deep in his chest, Stella Blómkvist is immediately thrown in at the deep end, brought in to defend the apparently harmless young man the police have in their sights as the killer.

The man’s mother had spent time in prison, convicted of killing her personal trainer, despite her protestations of innocence. Stella can’t help being drawn into both the cold case and this fresh murder, with a trail of guilt that stretches halfway across the world.

As if she doesn’t have enough to keep her busy, Stella’s also pursuing a political high-flyer suspected of being a serial rapist, and defending a senior police officer of corruption charges that have all the hallmarks of a vendetta. 

But the toughest challenges Stella faces are among her own loved ones…

When the skeletons of a young woman and a baby are uncovered on a long-abandoned farm in Hvalfjörður, it is clear they were buried years apart.

West Iceland CID begins to investigate the disturbing discovery, aware that someone has gone to great lengths to keep the past hidden. In Akranes, Karitas, a young single mother seeking a new start, settles in with her four-year-old son and rents a basement flat from an eccentric landlord. A cautious sense of happiness returns when she meets the boy next door.

But when news breaks that a local girl has been murdered, Karitas must decide who she can trust, knowing that one wrong choice could place her and her child in danger. Detective Elma is drawn into the case, forced to navigate long-hidden family secrets to understand a killer’s motive, while trying to hold together her increasingly troubled relationship with Sævar.

Dark, atmospheric and rich with psychological suspense, The Last Tenant confirms Eva Björg Ægisdóttir as one of Iceland’s finest crime writers, as a meticulous investigation and a series of unsettling discoveries draw a close-knit community towards a reckoning no one can escape…

High up in the mountains stands a sanatorium. Once a hospital dedicated to treating tuberculosis, it now sits haunted by the ghosts of its past.

One wing of the hospital remains open and houses six employees: the caretaker, two doctors, two nurses and a young research assistant. Despite the wards closing decades ago, they remain at the hospital to conduct research. But the cold corridors, draughty windows and echoey halls are constant reminders of the building’s dark history.

When one of the nurses, Yrsa, is found brutally murdered, they discover that death has never left this place – and neither did its secrets. None can escape this terrifying legacy. Despite just five suspects the case is never solved and remains open for two decades.

Until a young criminologist named Helgi Reykdal attempts to finally lay the ghosts of the hospital's past to rest . . .

Dóra struggles to cope with life after taking a bullet to the head. Rado is the child of refugees, his career shunted off the tracks due to his family connections to an rganised crime gang. But they’re the only ones available when a troubled teenager vanishes from a school trip, and the trail gets darker the further they pursue it.

Broken takes place in a side of Reykjavík no visitor would ever want to see, as the mismatched pair tread on all the wrong toes in the search for the missing youngster.