#BlogTour - Fatal Isles by Maria Adolfsson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A remote island. A brutal murder. A secret hidden in the past...

In the middle of the North Sea, between the UK and Denmark, lies the beautiful and rugged island nation of Doggerland.

Detective Inspector Karen Eiken Hornby has returned to the main island, Heimö, after many years in London and has worked hard to become one of the few female police officers in Doggerland.

So, when she wakes up in a hotel room next to her boss, Jounas Smeed, she knows she's made a big mistake. But things are about to get worse: later that day, Jounas's ex-wife is found brutally murdered. And Karen is the only one who can give him an alibi.

The news sends shockwaves through the tight-knit island community, and with no leads and no obvious motive for the murder, Karen struggles to find the killer in a race against time.

Soon she starts to suspect that the truth might lie in Doggerland's history. And the deeper she digs, the clearer it becomes that even small islands can hide deadly secrets...

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, which might be best described as a Scandinavian police procedural, but isn’t, really... FATAL ISLES by Maria Adolfsson was originally published in Sweden as ‘Felsteg’ (The Wrong Step in apparently the literal translation and is, for me, a better title; the only thing I didn’t like about the book was the title). It is the first novel in the Doggerland series about DI Karen Eiken Hornby, who we first meet as she sneaks away from an ill-advised post-Oyster Festival liaison with a man who turns out to be her boss. When the boss’s wife is found murdered later that morning, Eiken’s life becomes even more complicated. 

The plot is not rushed. It takes its time, is full of twists and turns, and is populated by a large cast of characters, all well-drawn and convincing. The story is dark and gripping but there are occasional moments of humour, particularly in the interactions between some characters. But it is to the author’s, and translator’s, credit that FATAL ISLES’s greatest strength is its sense of place. Doggerland is perhaps the most realistic character in the book, possibly surprising as it doesn’t actually exist. Or, rather, doesn’t really exist anymore. What I initially thought to be one of the Danish islands is actually Maria Adolfsson’s reimagining of the last part of the land bridge which one connected Great Britain to Continental Europe, and which sank into the North Sea over 7000 years ago. 

The author creates a place with elements of both UK and Scandinavian society. She describes the history, geography and geology, the customs, the people, even the town planning and zoning, with a verisimilitude that is stunning and very subtle, all done within the confines of, and serving, the story. Karen Eiken too reflects the pluralism, having left Doggerland for a life in London, returning years later with her own emotional burden. She is an intriguing character and will, along with the way Adolfsson brings the story to a satisfying conclusion while building a supporting cast of equal intrigue, bring me back for further instalments. I hope it’s not too long. 

Thanks to @AdolfssonMia @ZaffreBooks and @Tr4cyF3nt0n for the opportunity to discover and review this superb novel.

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