Nordic mystery: The Silence of the Sea by Yrsa Sigurdardottiron

I don’t read a lot of crime fiction but now and again it feels the perfect kind of book and that nothing else will fit the need just as completely. After the rather draining experience of reading A Little Life followed by the, if not as desperately miserable, still sombre Did You Ever Have a Family, I was in urgent need of a less challenging read.

Fortunately Yrsa Sigurðardóttir was readily to hand. She’s an Icelandic writer of children’s fiction and crime-novels including a bestselling series featuring the lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir. I’ve never read anything by her previously but saw her latest novel The Silence of the Sea recommended in one of the Sunday newspapers last year.

This is a locked-ship kind of mystery. It begins when a luxury yacht arrives in Reyjkavik harbour minus its three-man crew and its passengers. There are no immediately evident signs of foul play. There are no bodies either. Lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir is recruited by an elderly couple whose son, wife and twin granddaughters were the passengers on the yacht as it sailed from Portugal.  Of course they want to know what happened to their loved ones but they also need Thóra’s help to get custody of the small grand-daughter that had been left in their care.

Thóra, like many in Reykjavik is intrigued. What happened to everyone on board that craft? Before long she’s in pursuit of the truth. The discovery of blood stains and a few bodies spice up the action. Interspersed with her investigations are chapters that take place on board the yacht, gradually building up our knowledge of what went wrong.  Without revealing the secret I’ll just drop one hint – the plot reminded me of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.  

Sigurdardottir does a fine job of ratcheting up the suspense and keeping you guessing without making the storyline seem ridiculously preposterous. Ignore the promotional blob on the cover hailing Sigurdardottir as “Iceland’s answer to Steig Larrson” – The Silence of the Sea is nothing like The Girl Who …… Not only does that comparison mislead readers it does a disservice to Sigurdardottir and her accomplishment in this novel which is to write a darn good yarn without resort to lots of whistles and bells. It’s not rich in terms of character development but its not devoid of that either.  Gudmundsdóttir is an interesting character, more detective than lawyer whose personal family concerns are revealed in just enough detail to make us warm to her as an individual. The only real gap for me was that I didn’t truly get a sense of Reykjavik or of anything uniquely Iceland. Maybe that criticism is a bit unfair given that so much of the action takes place at sea – exactly where the passengers don’t know since they’ve lost all radio contact and the navigation system isn’t working. It’s just a dimension that I enjoyed when reading Henning Mankell’s Wallander series or, come to that, Ian Rankin’s Rebus novels. It maybe I’ll find that missing element if I read some of Sigurdardottir’s earlier novels in the Gudmundsdóttir series (scratch the ‘if’ – I know I’ll be reconnecting with her next time I’m in need of a touch of crime.)