MY SOUL TO TAKE is Yrsa Sigurdardóttir’s second book featuring Icelandic lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, and continues her chosen theme of having Thóra investigate two crimes at once that are related, one set in the present, and one set in the past. This time, one of her real estate clients has decided that the property he bought is haunted.
Since he is building a spiritual spa on the site, he is furious about this and wants a settlement with the sellers. When Thóra starts to sniff around, the female architect at the site is brutally beaten, raped and killed, with long pins shoved into the soles of her feet. Not long after that, the male aura reader of the resort is found trampled to death by a stallion. He has a dead fox tied to his chest, and the same pins driven into his feet.
Our protagonist is as charming and interesting as in her debut novel, LAST RITUALS. There are minor family struggles, with her young boy who is soon to become a father, and her ex-husband, Hannes, who is a thorn in her side. She’s involved now with a young German named Matthew, and he eventually visits the spa to help in the investigation.
Sigurdardóttir’s strengths are evident again in this work. She’s very good at depicting the actual process of investigation, has a knack at evoking the Icelandic countryside, and the translation this time (by Bernard Scudder and Anna Yates) is smooth and readable. But it’s the plot that kind of sticks here.
It’s needlessly complicated with multiple families and genealogical lines, some of which tend to blur together. And the brutality of all the crimes, both past and present, seems over-the-top. It’s good to have another book in the series and I will eagerly await a third, but if this your first Icelandic mystery, then start with LAST RITUALS to get the flavor. —Mark Rose
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• LAST RITUALS
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MY SOUL TO TAKE was one of my summer reads adn a very pleasing one it was. Yrsa seems to get better and better, with the moody Icelandic countryside a major player…