Translated by Victoria Cribb.
Published 10th September 2026 by Oranda Books.
From the cover of the book:
Trust can be deadly…
When the skeletons of a young woman and a baby are uncovered on a long-abandoned farm in Hvalfjörður, it is clear they were buried years apart. West Iceland CID begins to investigate the disturbing discovery, aware that someone has gone to great lengths to keep the past hidden.
In Akranes, Karitas, a young single mother seeking a new start, settles in with her four-year-old son and rents a basement flat from an eccentric landlord. A cautious sense of happiness returns when she meets the boy next door.
But when news breaks that a local girl has been murdered, Karitas must decide who she can trust, knowing that one wrong choice could place her and her child in danger. Detective Elma is drawn into the case, forced to navigate long-hidden family secrets to understand a killer’s motive, while trying to hold together her increasingly troubled relationship with Sævar.
Dark, atmospheric and rich with psychological suspense, The Last Tenant confirms Eva Björg Ægisdóttir as one of Iceland’s finest crime writers, as a meticulous investigation and a series of unsettling discoveries draw a close-knit community towards a reckoning no one can escape...
***********
Two skeletons are found, buried in at a long-abandoned farm in Hvalfjörður - the remains of a young woman, and a tiny baby. Detective Elma of West Iceland CID is rapidly drawn into the case, which becomes even more complex when it appears that the bodies were buried years apart.
In Akranes, single mother Karitas moves into a basement flat with her four-year-old son Bessi. She is looking forward to new start, and delighted when she begins a tentative relationship with her attractive new neighbour Kristófer. But she cannot shift the feeling that something is not quite right with her eccentric, ever-watchful landlord, Baldvin.
When the news gets out that the body of a local girl has been found, Karitas begins to question who she can trust in Akranes. And, Elma gets drawn into the victim's murky family history, which is full of secrets - while she tries to decide if her own partner, Sævar, is hiding things too...
Eva is back with her sixth darkly delicious book in the addictive Forbidden Iceland series. Told from the perspectives of Elma, Karitas, and Kristófer, with additional narratives carefully dropped in on occasion to set your brain off on scattered directions, this is a twisty delight typical of Eva's Agatha Christie-like style.
When two skeletons are found at a farm that has been abandoned for decades, Detective Elma has a tricky investigation on her hands that leads back to the disappearance of Sólrún, a young medical student from Akranes, who went missing six years ago. Why the remains were found beside a baby's at a location unconnected to Sólrún, but rich in an uncomfortable history all of its own, is a complete mystery - one which will take Elma a lot of digging into the past to solve. And she has her own distracting worries to contend with when Sævar's distance convinces her their relationship is in trouble.
In parallel, Karitas is trying to make the best of the turn of fate that has brought her to Akranes with Bessi, but her hopeful beginning quickly becomes clouded by worries about her strange landlord, and the nagging feeling that she is getting out of her depth with Kristófer - especially when she discovers Sólrún was his girlfriend at the time of her disappearance, and she was linked to Baldvin too.
The threads of this gripping story weave around each other, exploring a wealth of knotty themes around the relationships between mothers and sons, and the presence of monsters within. Eva uses the power of rumour beautifully throughout, manipulating what you think you know, keeping you guessing with more than one likely suspect for the murderer, and shifting your perception with sinuous twists that keep you engaged. There are some nifty elements about DNA evidence that are quite intriguing too. Victoria Cribb's translation flows nicely, as always, which is admirable given the number of complex storylines Eva loves to bring to her novels.
Just a good as I knew it would be, from one of Iceland's best Nordic noir writers. Eva never lets me down!
The Last Tenant is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats. You can support indie publishing by buying direct from Orenda Books HERE.
Thank you to Orenda Books for sending me a review copy of this book.
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. Five more books in the series have followed to date, plus a standalone mystery Home Before Dark.
Eva lives with her husband and three children in Reykjavík.
No comments:
Post a Comment