#ReadAroundTheWorld. #Iceland

This is first in the Þóra Guðmundsdóttir (Thóra Gudmundsdóttir) series of Nordic Noir novels by Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. Set in Reykjavik in 2005, single mother and lawyer Þóra Guðmundsdóttir (Thóra Gudmundsdóttir) is approached by a wealthy German family to look into the recent death of their history student son Harold as they are unconvinced by the results of the police investigation.

Thóra is paired up with German Matthew Reich, who works for the family. The more Thóra looks into the life of Harold, the stranger things appear. Harold is obsessed with witchcraft, torture and witch hunts. He has also been researching the execution of Bishop Jón Arason, the last Catholic bishop of Iceland, who was beheaded in 1550, and searching the Old Norse manuscript collection of Bishop Brynjólfur Sveinsson. Harold and his group of friends get together to recreate dark rituals. The story touches on all sorts of things including sexual asphyxiation and body mutilation.

Sigurðardóttir creates both atmosphere and drama and paints a picture of Iceland. I’ve not read a lot of noir but I enjoyed Thóra as a character (apart from her diatribe about her secretary’s appearance) and would like to read more of this series. 4 stars. ( )

Thóra Guðmundsdóttir is a lawyer and single mother who is contacted by a family in Germany to investigate the death of their son while attending a graduate program in history at the university. This is not her area, as she is mostly a contract lawyer. But the money is good, and she has sympathy for the mother making the request.

The mystery revolves around the dead student's obsession with sorcery, black magic, and witch trials and much of the investigation involves trying to understand the manuscripts and history that the student was pursuing. It's not clear how many of these are based on actual documents. Thóra is joined by Matthew Reich, a representative of the student's family for the investigation. The author has imbued this German with an interesting sense of humor which provides some relief in a dark story.

Thóra's behavior in the novel seems to be a bit out of bounds for an attorney. And the dialogue is sometimes stilted.

I'm not sure if I'll read any of the rest of this series. ( )

did not believe I would enjoy this at the beginning, due to all of the characters being awful, but the mystery itself was compelling enough to have me staying up nearly two hours past my bedtime, and I enjoyed it immensely ( )

Asi reza la carta que, escrita con la propia sangre de su hijo Harald, recibe en Alemania Amelia Gotlieb, dias despues de que la policia islandesa encontrara el cadaver del muchacho en la Facultad de Historia de Reykjavik: un cadaver al que, ademas, le han sacado los ojos y lleva marcados en su cuerpo extranos signos que dejan a los forenses entre el estupor y el espanto. Descontentos con el trabajo de la policia, y deseosos de que la verdad se descubra de la forma mas discreta posible, los padres del difunto contratan entonces los servicios de pora, una letrada islandesa a la que ayudara Matthew, el abogado aleman que envia la familia. pora y Matthew inician una investigacion que les llevara desde la moderna Reykjavik al extremo noroeste de la isla, una zona inhospita y salvaje donde, como en tantos otros lugares de Europa, se llevaron a cabo ejecuciones de decenas de personas acusadas de brujeria.

I started this series by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir earlier this year, but accidentally read book 3 first. Now I followed up with book 1, Das letzte Ritual. The title of the English translation is "Last Rituals". The main character is called Thóra in the English version, but it is Dóra in the German version, so I am sticking to that one because otherwise I will be confused.

This crime novel is set in Reykjavik where a German student is found dead in the university. The body is in a gruesome state, but the murderer is arrested shortly after. However, the wealthy parents of the victim believe that the wrong man has been arrested. Dóra, a divorced lawyer and mom of two children, is asked by them to investigate and find the real murderer. She teams up with their handsome German employee Matthias and dives deep into the history of the Icelandic witch trials. The victim was fascinated by this topic and was researching it for a thesis, and it seems like his death might be connected to this dark topic.

"Das letzte Ritual" was an easy and quick read that kept me interested. I like Dóra as a main character and I enjoyed the mystery and the various twists. The parts involving her private life did not divert from the plot of the book, but enhanced the characterization.
What I did not like (once again - it was the same in book 3) was the constant body shaming and comments on people's looks and figures. Some of the other characters were also rather flat and stereotypical. I cannot comment on the background of the witch trials, but it seemed a little too "Dan Brown" to me and I wonder which parts of it were historical facts and which were fabricated for the sake of the novel. But then, this topic is altogether too dreadful and I am not inclined to dive further, so I will probably not find out. ( )