Ashes to Dust

Starred review from February 13, 2012
Sigurdardóttir’s excellent third thriller featuring lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir should win this talented Icelandic author new fans. In 1973, a volcanic eruption on Iceland’s Heimaey Island buried a number of houses in lava, including that of Markús Magnusson, who was 15 at the time. In 2007, an excavation of his childhood home reveals three bodies and a severed head that appear to be decades old. Markús tells the police he knows nothing about the bodies, but the single person who could have verified his version of events is found dead, her apparent suicide soon revealed as murder. With the searchlight of suspicion cast on his affairs, Markús must rely on Thóra, his determined lawyer, to defend his interests. Siggurdardóttir uses Iceland’s past and present to full effect in this tale of hidden crimes and family secrets. Even those unfamiliar with this volcanic island nation will find themselves entranced.

March 1, 2012
A trip down a flight of stairs leads to an unspeakable discovery with appalling consequences for Reykjavik attorney Thora Gudmundsdottir and her latest client. No one has been able to enter the house in which Markus Magnusson had been brought up since a volcanic eruption in Iceland's Westmann Islands in 1973. Now that an archeological project is excavating several of the houses buried under lava and ash, Markus has engaged Thora to accompany him and the project's representative as he searches the house for personal articles his family might have left behind in their hurried evacuation. But he insists on going down to the basement alone, and when he calls out to her, she joins him to find a horrifying scene: three long-dead bodies and the severed head of a fourth. The story Markus tells is as shaky as he is. Alda Thorgeirsdottir, the nurse he'd carried a torch for when they were in school together, had asked him to retrieve a box she'd asked him to get rid of just before the eruption--a box he'd left in the basement without ever opening it to reveal the head. Unfortunately for Markus, Alda's in no position to confirm this wild tale because someone's just killed her in a particularly fiendish way. So after the police lock up Markus for the 34-year-old murders, Thora (Last Rituals, 2007, etc.) makes the rounds of three generations of locals searching for exculpatory evidence and alternate suspects. The former is hard to find, but the latter are plentiful in a world in which the sins of the fathers are visited without mercy on the children. Buried under all the volcanic ash, false trails and endless recriminations is a puzzle whose grim solution is worthy of Stieg Larsson.

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March 1, 2012

In her third outing (after My Soul To Take) Icelandic lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir is hired to assist an heir to an elite fishing company located on a volcanic island far from Rekyavik. A few decades after a catastrophic volcanic eruption, life on the island is dramatically uprooted by the discovery of three dead bodies and one head in a box. It is up to Gudmundsdottir both to defend her client on charges of murder and to find out who exactly is behind these crimes. VERDICT In this long and detailed novel, the author loads her story with clues, some of which ultimately prove to be relevant while others turn out to be superfluous. But her heroine is engaging and spunky, and fans of both mystery and international crime fiction will be intrigued by the stark setting and puzzling plot.--Jennifer Rogers, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib, Richmond

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2012
The third Thra Gudmundsdttir mystery finds the Icelandic lawyer visiting the offshore islands, site of a volcanic eruption in the 1970s that buried an entire village. Now an archaeological dig is set to uncover several of the homes when a former resident contacts Thra, begging her to get an injunction to keep his home from being dug up. She compromises with the archaeologists, allowing him to enter the home first to retrieve an item; but when three bodies are found, and the box he hoped to retrieve turns out to contain a severed head, a seemingly innocuous legal matter turns into a murder investigation. Since the bodies were clearly left during the eruption, the investigation turns historical, forcing Thra and her assistant to dig into family and local histories that many of the residents would prefer to remain secret. A dark and twisty mystery sets Thra up against the local police and even her own client. A fine mix of crime and vividly realized landscape.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)