I'm always up for a new Icelandic mystery, so many thanks to Corylus Books for including me on the blog tour for Guðrún Guðlaugsdóttir's "A Lethal Legacy". The book is one in a series by Guðlaugsdóttir featuring freelance journalist Alma Jónsdóttir. "A Lethal Legacy" was translated to English by Quentin Bates, an excellent Nordic Noir author in his own right.
"A Lethal Legacy" opens with a disturbing call from a daughter to her mother: “'Brynjólfur’s dead?’ Alma said, holding the phone tight to her ear. "Yes, he died sometime last night”
So begins the story of three seemingly ordinary siblings, whose lives are fractured by an unexpected death. Guðlaugsdóttir's deceptively simple style is once again irresistible in this new book in the Alma Jónsdóttir mystery series.
On a farm in the Icelandic countryside, Brynjólfur Eiríksson and his two sisters, Klara and Thórdís, live together on their family farm. Their brother Einar died many years ago at the age of 25, and none of the remaining siblings ever married. Brynjólfur and Klara have lived on the farm all their lives unlike Thórdís, who left home when she was very young with no plans to return. She only agreed to come back when Brynjólfur told her that their father had died.
Now the three of them live as if frozen in time, kept there by Brynjólfur's wish to preserve the farm as a future museum. All of them are infirm, and have a live-in caretaker, Gunnhildur, to assist with cooking, cleaning, and bathing. One morning, Gunnhildur finds Brynjólfur dead in his freezing bedroom with the window open, looking as "white as a sheet". The cause of death is assumed to be pneumonia, but Gunnhildur knows that something is not right. Brynjólfur was terrified of catching pneumonia and would never sleep in such conditions.
As his caretaker, Gunnhildur is concerned that she might be held responsible in some way. She's also scared to stay in the house because her two-year old daughter Uma has been seeing a ghostly figure she calls "Binni" (her pet name for Brynjólfur). Either this is a product of Uma's childish imagination, or someone's been prowling around the house in the dark hours. Gunnhildur calls her mother, journalist and series regular Alma, about Brynjólfur's death, Alma agrees to come at once.
In view of the suspicious circumstances, Alma asks her friend Sveinbjörg, who loves anything supernatural, to join her. Gunnhildur tells them that the atmosphere in the house has always been extremely tense. There were constant arguments between the siblings over Brynjólfur's museum plans. Thórdís hated the idea, but sister Klara supported her brother. Now, the sisters are barely speaking to each other and keep to their rooms.
The problems in the household are not just between the two squabbling sisters. A young couple, Rosa and Thorbjörn, rent a house and land on the family property. The relationship deteriorated when Thorbjörn, who was supposed to run the farm at Bjargarlækur, got rid of most of the livestock without telling anyone and is reportedly brewing moonshine. This made Brynjólfur furious and Thórdís calls them "a pair of vandals".
With Brynjólfur gone, Rosa is trying to further insinuate herself into the sister's lives. There's a good chance that Rosa and her husband have been trying to take over the farm by preying upon its elderly inhabitants. Alma also finds out that Rosa is having an affair with Jón Bjarnason, parish council member and one of the few people who regularly visit the farm. Like the siblings, Jon never married, and “has that strangeness about him that men get when they’ve been alone for a long time.”
Without concern for her mother and the elderly sisters, Gunnhildur takes off with her daughter to try to patch things up with Una's father. Alma is irritated to be left with her daughter's responsibilities, but has Sveinbjörg there for moral support. She determines to look into Brynjólfur's death. Then, misfortune strikes one of the sisters and Alma wonders if someone is targeting the entire family. She resolves to find the guilty party and end the threat.
Alma is a keen investigator and most intriguingly, finds tantalizing clues involving Brynjólfur's death in old family photographs, the house's dark cellar, and Brynjólfur's workshop. What she discovers convinces her that Brynjólfur's death was not a natural one. One night, someone pushes Alma down the stairs and she narrowly avoids a serious accident. It's easy to conclude that someone is trying to stop her from learning more about the Eiríkssons.
To complicate the story, more possible motives come to light. A man called Birgir Ragnarsson comes to the house seeking carpentry work, claiming that that his mother worked on the farm as a young woman. The sisters don't know Ragnarsson, but his mother did live there when older brother Einar was still alive. Alma sees in him a strong resemblance to Brynjólfur in the old photographs. Could he be a long-lost relative and if so, is he responsible for the family's misfortunes?
In "A Lethal Legacy", it's clear that something is definitely rotten in the house of the Eiríkssons. The Eiríksson family and the other players have secrets to keep and a fierce desire to keep them hidden. Alma comes to realize that the only way forward is to persuade people to reveal what they've kept secret, and just as importantly, why. The tension grows as Alma wonders if she can accomplish this before there are any more deaths.
Guðrún Guðlaugsdóttir has created a haunting tale of past misdeeds still resounding in the present. It's a treat to see this story unfold through Alma's eyes and reach its unpredictable conclusion. I look forward to reading future English translations of Guðlaugsdóttir's work.
With a long career as a journalist behind her, Guðrún Guðlaugsdóttir’s literary output has been prodigious, having written biographies, books of interviews, collections of short stories and a book of verse, as well as the enduringly popular series of novels featuring the exploits of journalist Alma Jónsdóttir. Guðrún lives in Kópavogur. She has no plans to retire, and is still writing when most people of her age are taking it easy.
Please buy/order "A Lethal Legacy" from your local independent bookstore, or go to bookshop.org and order there. They now offer ebooks as well.
For audiobooks, go to libro.fm.
