A few years ago I read a couple of the Thóra Guðmundsdóttir mysteries but I wasn’t particularly impressed so I never continued with the series (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2017/08/archival-review-of-last-rituals-by-yrsa.html). After a recent visit to Iceland, I decided to give Sigurðardóttir another try and chose this standalone novel. I’m afraid my impressions of the author have not improved.

There are three stories which are eventually tied together. Four people are taken by helicopter to the remote Thrídrangar lighthouse perched on a rock in the Atlantic. A storm and a delayed pickup because of mechanical problems increase the tension amongst the stranded. A family returns from a house-swap holiday and finds things in disarray in their home with no sign of the American family who had stayed there. A police officer is given a job clearing out old files while her husband Thröstur lies on the verge of death after a suicide attempt; she discovers files about a case in which Thröstur, as a child, was a witness. She decides to investigate whether this old case might have impacted her husband in the present.

There are so many plot holes and coincidences that the plot is not credible: Sinister messages appear in the most isolated places. A man manages to be very stealthy despite the fact that repeated descriptions of his physical appearance suggest he would not likely be capable of stealth? Would a reputable journalist stage a photo for an article he is writing? A person would purchase a home in a neighbourhood without recognizing it from his childhood? The trip to Thrídrangar is so poorly planned that little food and water is provided and the weather forecast is not checked beforehand? Also, withholding and distorting so much information when narrating from the perspective of a character is a form of cheap trickery: “Weariness wins out in the end, though, so he is oblivious to the commotion up on the gallery later that night.” And why would an innocent person imagine something that makes him look guilty: “Without his knowing where the words came from, a brief greeting sprang into his mind: Welcome back, liar.”

I dislike narratives that rely on police incompetence. There are several examples of incomplete police investigations and a senior police officer actually gives files to a civilian. And the police are especially stupid in designating their chief suspect at the end; this suspect has no reason to ask the titular question in the menacing messages since he has always known the answer.

The plot is rather predictable. The title clearly suggests that people have lied. Who has lied is obvious because the author emphasizes the signs of lying: “All the signs of a liar rolled into one.” By the end of Chapter 15, less than half way through the book, any careful reader will identify the most dangerous person at the lighthouse because of the lack of a reaction.

Sigurðardóttir is often praised for her ability to create atmosphere. There is indeed a pervading sense of menace throughout, but the same technique is repeatedly used. Something is always just out sight: “It felt as if someone were watching him” and “An icy chill runs down his spine when he spots a dark shadow . . . The fog closes in again and the shadow disappears . . . Nothing can explain the shape he thought he saw” and “If she let herself, she would start tuning into the noises she thought she could hear at the back of the storeroom . . . As if someone was standing there, breathing heavily.”

The scattered chronology can be confusing. A reader would be advised to make notes on what happens when in each of the three plots; each chapter begins with a date but the reader must remember these dates to realize that events in the three plots do not occur simultaneously.

Yrsa Sigurðardóttir is often called the Queen of Icelandic Crime Fiction, but she hasn’t impressed me. I shall have to read something by Sólveig Pálsdóttir and Lilja Sigurðardóttir (a relative?), two other female Icelandic crime writers of note, to decide if Yrsa has competition for the title.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). ( )

It took a while for the various threads to come together: police officer Nina and her dying husband, the group on the stack, and the family back from their house swap trip to the US. The different (but only marginally) timelines were a little confusing and the final twist was fairly obvious by the end. Enjoyable nevertheless, although it has made me determined never to visit a stack. ( )

How to describe this plot? Take 3 seemingly unconnected stories. You know they must be connected somehow but what or who is the connecting point is really elusive. Each of the scenarios is fascinating but how they are linked is hidden until the very end. And there comes a final surprise, a real whammy out of left field.

Credit for making the connections goes to the wife of the journalist who, as a result of his attempted suicide, is lying in hospital on life support. Nina is a policewoman in disgrace, on light duties, supposedly clearing out files in the police station basement. She needs to know why Throstur tried to commit suicide and comes across some old files that link him with her boss.

And then right at the end, after we think we know everything, just a hint that it is not yet all over. ( )

The multiple-threads-without-obvious-connection novels are coming thick and fast these days but few are as skillfully realised as Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s standalone novel WHY DID YOU LIE?

There are three strands which all, on the face of it, sound a little dull. Or at least not very mysterious. A policewoman struggles to cope with her husband’s attempted suicide; unable to make the decision to remove his life support despite there being no hope of his return to health. A family returns to Iceland after a house-swapping holiday to discover some odd things not as they would have expected. Four people head to the very inhospitable lighthouse on Thrídrangar (basically a large rock sticking out of the sea) to undertake some maintenance and have to stay longer than they planned.

I was a good third of the way into the book before realising that nothing traditionally ‘thrilling’ had happened yet but I was completely hooked. I’m not sure I can explain why. Part of it is the expectation: the sense that things will…eventually…go awry and Sigurdardottir makes the anticipation work. She cuts between the three strands at exactly the right moment. Not in a James-Patterson “cliffhanger at the end of every 3-page chapter” kind of way. But we spend enough time with each set of characters to be invested in learning more about their respective situations but not too much that we become bored. There’s lots of suggestion and doubt and misdirection too so that even the savviest of crime fiction readers will not be able to predict everything that happens. Even when things do start to knit together – when we start to see why bad things are happening to this disparate group of people – it’s still not clear which of the characters we’ve come to know is responsible for the mayhem.

Something else which helps build the suspense is the ordinariness of the characters. They are people who are easy to identify with because they’re people we recognise…people like us. When their lives slowly start to unravel the unease they must be feeling is all too easy to imagine. I also like that the characters are understated. Not filled with quirks and psychological damage or other obvious elements designed to make them stand out.

The psychological thriller label is used too often but in the case of WHY DID THEY LIE? it is apt. It is unsettling rather than bump-in-the-night scary but that’s just what I like.

Three separate incidents are told from three protagonists within the novel. Yrsa builds the suspense chapter by chapter with a twist at the end bringing the whole picture into a single focus. ( )