Home Before Dark by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir

 

Home Before Dark by Eva Bjorg Aegisdottir.

Transalted by Victoria Cribb.

Published 27th July 2025 by Orenda Books.

From the cover of the book:

November, 1967, Iceland. Fourteen-year-old Marsí has a secret penpal – a boy who lives on the other side of the country – but she has been writing to him in her older sister’s name. Now she is excited to meet him for the first time.

But when the date arrives, Marsí is prevented from going, and during the night her sister Stína goes missing – her bloodstained anorak later found at the place where Marsí and her penpal had agreed to meet.

November, 1977. Stína’s disappearance remains unsolved. Then an unexpected letter arrives for Marsí It’s from her penpal, and he’s still out there…

Desperate for news of her missing sister, but terrified that he might coming after her next, Marsí returns to her hometown and embarks on an investigation of her own.

But Marsí has always had trouble distinguishing her vivid dreams from reality, and as insomnia threatens her sanity, it seems she can’t even trust her own memories.

And her sister’s killer is still on the loose…

***********

Iceland, November 1967. Marsi strikes up a correspondence with a secret penpal, a boy she is now planning to meet, but when the time comes she is unable to make it to their assignation. That same night her older sister Stina goes missing, leaving behind a bloodstained anorak on the roadside. She is never seen again. Marsi is consumed by the notion that Stina's disappearance is somehow related to her penpal - she can never reveal that she had been using Stina's identity to write to him instead of her own...

Ten years later, the mystery of Stina's disappearance remains unsolved. Plagued with insomnia, and feelings of guilt, Marsi returns home to her broken family for the anniversary of that fateful night. But this year something is different - her penpal has contacted her once again, and she is frightened he might be coming for her next. The time has come for her to find out once and for all what happened to her sister.

Every time I read one of Aegisdottir's cracking Nordic noir mysteries I am struck with the well-deserved comparisons between her work and that of the eminent Agatha Christie. I think this book, more than any of hers I have read before, shows every ounce of the talent that has earned her this reputation.

The story unfurls in two deliciously twisted timelines, through the narratives of Marsi in 1977, and Stina in 1967. In classic Aegisdottir style, she begins from the outset to lay plenty of false trails as the two timelines weave back and forth, delving into the tragic consequences of family dramas, friendship clashes, and coming of age struggles. 

Marsi's desperate quest for the truth drives the story, and she makes for a complicated protagonist as her chronic insomnia, the toll of the guilty feelings that haunt her, and half-remembered memories (that may of may not be true) warp her perception of events in past and present. As she delves into matters others would prefer she left alone, suspicion of those she thought she could trust only clouds her judgement further. 

The plot is devilishly clever. Aegisdottir deftly spins multiple threads of mystery about Stina's disappearance, shocking secrets, and Iceland's uncomfortable post-WWII history. She misleads, misdirects, and springs her carefully concealed traps like never before, all while immersing you in the gritty reality of a family torn apart by loss, and things that remain unsaid. And the atmosphere! It is thick with all the edgy suspense that comes from unsettled weather, brooding landscape, capricious characters with murky motivations, and unsettling locations you are bound to revisit in your nightmares.

I could not put this book down. Victoria Cribb's translation is crisp and viscerally gut-wrenching, doing full justice to the imagination of one of Iceland's most accomplished crime writers, and this book makes the perfect choice to celebrate Women in Translation month this August. Simply superb!

Home Before Dark is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats. You can support the very best of indie publishing by buying direct from Orenda Books HERE

Thank you to Orenda Books for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Born in Akranes in 1988, Eva moved to Trondheim, Norway to study her MSc in Globalisation when she was 25. 

After moving back home having completed her MSc, she knew it was time to start working on her novel. Eva has wanted to write books since she was 15 years old, having won a short story contest in Iceland. Eva worked as a stewardess to make ends meet while she wrote her first novel, The Creak on the Stairs. The book went on to win the CWA Debut Dagger, the Blackbird Award, was shortlisted (twice) for the Capital Crime Readers' Awards, and became a number one bestseller in Iceland. The critically acclaimed Girls Who Lie (book two in the Forbidden Iceland series) soon followed, with Night Shadows (book three) following suit in July 2022. You Can’t See Me (book four) was released in 2023, with Boys Who Hurt out in 2024.

Eva lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík.