The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir
| The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir | |
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| Category: Crime | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: Truly a book of two halves - the first half sent me to sleep but the second is a real page turner. You have to be willing to invest some time to get to the meat of the story. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 432 | Date: April 2012 |
| Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks | |
| ISBN: 978-1444700107 | |
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All contact is lost with two Icelanders working in a remote north-eastern coast of Greenland. There are some signs of what might have happened to them - and none of them good - but the local villagers have no intention of helping in any search and are hostile when they're approached. Six months before a woman geologist had disappeared from the same site and although this was written off as a potential suicide or dreadful accident no definitive explanation had been forthcoming. Was her disappearance related to the disappearance of the two men? Lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir was part of the team hired to investigate the disappearances.
I've a confession to make: I love reading in bed. If I'm warm and comfortable and have a good book then I can think of no greater indulgence and this was how I began reading The Day is Dark. It's a chilling book - the climate in this part of Greenland is harsh and unforgiving and the circumstances are truly frightening on occasions - so what better way to read? Unfortunately, there was a problem. I kept falling asleep. I'd read a couple of paragraphs and wake when the book hit my nose... Eventually, I fell asleep, full stop.
It does get better but the first half of the book takes far too long to get going and there were several occasions when I was tempted to give up. I'm glad I didn't because it's about at the half-way point that book turns into the gripping psychological thriller which I'd been expecting all along. The characters are good, the atmosphere and locations are superb and in the second half of the book the plot is a real page turner. I just felt that I'd had to pay too high a price for that second half.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag. For more Icelandic fiction we can recommend Cold Comfort by Quentin Bates or anything by Arnaldur Indridason.
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You can read more book reviews or buy The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir at Amazon.com.
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