Translated from the Icelandic by Quentin Bates.
Published 5th January 2024 in ebook and 1st February 2024 in paperback by Corylus Books.
From the cover of the book:
Life was never going to be a bed of roses…Tony is a young man who has always been on the losing side in life. He was brought up by his troubled, alcoholic mother who had a past of her own as a talented ballerina, until a life-changing accident brought her dreams to a sudden end. As her own ambitions for fame and success were crushed, she used cruel and brutal methods to project them onto her young son – with devastating consequences.
There’s no doubt that a body found on Reykjavík’s Öskjuhlíð hillside has been there for a long time. The case is handed to veteran detective Valdimar, supported by Ylfa, who is taking her tentative first steps as a police officer with the city’s CID while coping with her own family difficulties.
It’s not long before it’s clear a vicious killer is on the loose - and very little about the case is what it appears to be at first glance.
The Dancer was originally published in 2023 as a Storytel Original Series.
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Reykjavik, 1982. Tony is a troubled young man, raised by his chaotic, alcoholic mother, who was once a promising ballet dancer, until her career was brought to a premature end by a life-changing accident. Destroyed by the tragic turn in her life, Tony's mother has had one purpose - to forge her son into the dancer she could never be, but her brutal methods and cruelty have left their mark.
When a decomposing body is found on a snowy hillside, the job of solving the murder falls to veteran detective Valdimar, and his new colleague Ylfa. Somehow, the scattered clues in this bizarre case keep leading them back to a ground-breaking new dance production, but what can a disturbed killer possibly have to do with a ballet? Valdimar and Ylfa are determined to find out...
The Dancer is a blend of captivating Nordic noir crime yarn, and disturbing horror story, set in 1982, that is as sharp and breath-taking as a bracing Icelandic winter. Gudmundsson starts very much as he means to go on, with an deeply unsettling opening scene, starkly set against a crisp snowy backdrop, and from that moment on you find yourself unable to look away for a moment.
At its heart, this is an Icelandic murder mystery, with a framework firmly grounded in the grisly exploits of its killer and, rather intriguingly, Gudmundsson makes it easy for you to spot the guilty party from early on in the proceedings. However, the task of hunting down the killer is not quite so easy for Gudmundsson's detectives, wily Valdimar, with his unhealthy addiction to sweet treats, and the rookie Ylfa, who is torn between the demands of her personal and professional lives.
As Valdimar and Ylfa work their way through the investigation, the police procedural elements weave subtly through the more dominant storyline of the killer. Once their individual threads become enmeshed it becomes obvious that this is much of a 'whydunit' delving into what motivates someone to wander so far from the straight and narrow. This is an unconventional way for a crime novel to unfurl, but it works so darned well, especially when it comes to the way Gudmundsson's killer fills out in shades of grey, despite the increasingly depraved acts they engage in.
Gudmundsson holds nothing back in this story when it comes to unrelenting violence, and for a book of just over 200 pages there are a lot of gruelling scenes to work through, but these all have a place in leading you to the final belter of a blood-soaked climax that is wreathed in powerful emotions. Themes of childhood trauma, twisted relationships, victimhood, loneliness, betrayal, revenge and absolution resound, and the way Gudmundsson inextricably links them all to the compulsion to dance is striking. Excellent work here, once again, from Quentin Bates too, who is rapidly becoming one of my favourites for maintaining pace and potency in his translations from Icelandic to English.
This is full-on Icelandic noir that packs a punch, with echoes of Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, and a pinch of Psycho. Valdimar and Ylfa make for an endearing crime solving partnership against the gritty storyline, and deliciously atmospheric backdrop, and I cannot wait to see how this brand new series develops. More please!
The Dancer is available to buy now in paperback and ebook.
Thank you to Corylus Books for sending me an ecopy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Ewa Sherman for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.
About the author:
His debut Hilma was awarded the Icelandic Crime Syndicate’s Drop of Blood award for the best crime novel of 2015, and the TV rights have been acquired by Sagafilm. This was followed by a sequel Blood Angels in 2018. The first of his books published in an English translation, The Commandments, was a standalone novel which appeared in Iceland in 2019. All of Óskar’s books have been bestsellers and rewarded with outstanding reviews.
The first in a new series of novels The Dancer was published in Icelandic simultaneously as an eBook, audiobook, and paperback - accompanied by an original song in which Óskar’s words have been put to music featuring some of Iceland’s leading musicians - and was an immediate bestseller.
Óskar’s talents don’t end there, as he is also an artist and has held a number of exhibitions of his work.
About the translator:
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He is an author of series of nine crime novels and novellas featuring the Reykjavik detective Gunnhildur (Gunna) Gísladóttir.
In addition to his own fiction, he has translated many works of Iceland’s coolest writers into English, including books by Lilja Sigurðardóttir, Guðlaugur Arason, Einar Kárason, Óskar Guðmundsson, Sólveig Pálsdóttir, Jónína Leosdottir and Ragnar Jónasson.
Quentin was instrumental in launching Iceland Noir in 2013, the crime fiction festival in Reykjavik.
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