Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Solid Second in the Series

Trap by Lilja Sigurðardóttir

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Best for: Those who enjoy crime novels of the Icelandic variety. Those who appreciate when the main character is both a) not a man and b) not straight. In a nutshell: Sonja thinks she’s out but gets pulled back into the drug running world of Iceland, post financial crash. Worth quoting: N/A Why I chose it: Icelandic crime. Love it. Review: As I hoped, in this book we do get a bit more flesh on the bones of the characters. The style remains true to […]

Let It Snow

Available Dark by Elizabeth Hand

Home For The Holidays by Gary Reilly

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For the first time, I’m reviewing two books at once! Fortunately, both were solid 4-star reviews so I guess I don’t have to note that. Available Dark I read Generation Loss, the first book in the Cass Neary series over the summer and it absolutely knocked me off my feet. I don’t know what I expected but I didn’t expect that. I think it goes to show how the idea of having to “root for a character” in order to be invested is a crock of […]

Northern Exposure

Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson

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  The first few chapters of this book made me groan because they read like an airport paperback thriller. Nothing against that genre, it’s just not for me. I thought about quitting the book. But I stuck with it and I’m glad I did. It ended up being sort of a Agatha Christie tribute: a series of murders and unexplained events happening in a sleepy town where everybody knows everyone, only the town is perpetually covered in snow because it’s in the northernmost point of […]

A Middling Murder Mystery (BINGO #9!)

Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir (author), Bernard Scudder (translator)

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Last Rituals is the first in series focusing on Thóra Guðmundsdóttir, Icelandic lawyer and divorced mother of two. We are introduced to Thóra following the discovery of the body of a young German student Harald Guntlieb at a university in Reykjavík, his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest. Police wasted no time in making an arrest, but the victim’s family isn’t convinced that they have the right person. They ask Thóra to investigate on the recommendation of her old professor and […]

So I guess I need to work on my Icelandic…

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I am continuing on my Icelandic murder reading spree, thanks to the great suggestion of some other Cannonballers, via the Cannonball Read Chat Facebook group.  Thanks, peeps! This is book two of the “Erlendur series” that has been translated from Icelandic into English.  I guess books one and two didn’t merit translation?  For some reason, the English series started with book three.  The completist in me is desperately trying to ignore that. Let’s move on. Inspector Erlendur is back, as he and his fellow detectives investigate a […]

A rainy and murdery winter pick-me-up

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In prepping for my move from the south to the Midwest in winter I asked some folks for reading suggestions in two categories: light fluffy happy things to cheer my spirits, and dark winter-y tales to remind me things could be worse, in a schadenfreude sort of way. This is the latter, and it definitely delivered. Set in rainy chilly Iceland, an old man is found murdered in his home. Motive unclear, and nothing too strange other than a note left on the body that […]



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