THE ISLAND

A prequel to The Darkness (2018) that picks up
Inspector Hulda Hermansdóttir in 1997, 15 years before her unplanned
retirement, and finds her already just as lonely, resentful, and driven to
succeed against all odds.

Ten years after the death of Katla, a young woman who was
murdered on Ellidaey Island, an uninhabited scrap of rock off the remote southwest
coast of Iceland, four friends of hers return to the island. It’s not entirely
clear why securities trader Dagur, farmer’s daughter Alexandra, or perennially
unemployed Klara, who mostly aren’t close to each other, have accepted the
invitation of software company founder Benedikt to the scene of Katla’s murder.
But it’s soon very clear that the reunion was a seriously bad idea. When one of
the four not-quite-friends ends up at the bottom of a cliff, the others make
appropriately mournful sounds. But the discovery of marks on the victim’s
throat indicates that this new death is another murder and raises the
uncomfortable question of which of the three survivors—there’s literally no one
else on the island—is the killer. Hulda, who’s been off in America seeking her
birth father from among a short list of GIs named Robert who could possibly
have impregnated her mother during a tour of duty in Reykjavik, returns in time
to grab the case from under the nose of Lýdur, the former professional rival
who’s now her boss after having risen swiftly through the ranks, his rise
propelled in no small part by his work 10 years ago in identifying Katla’s
killer, who suddenly doesn’t look so guilty after all.

Jónasson, who could give
lessons on how to sustain a chilly atmosphere, sprinkles just enough hints of
ghostly agents to make you wonder if he’s going to fall back on a paranormal
resolution to the mystery. Don’t worry: The solution is both uncanny and all-too-human.