Reykjavik - A Crime Novel

About the book

What happened to Lara?

In 1956, fourteen year old Lara decides to spend the summer working for a couple on the small island of Videy, just off the coast of Reykjavik. In early August, the girl disappears without a trace.

Time passes, and the mystery becomes Icelands greatest unsolved case. What happened to the young girl? Is she still alive? Did she leave the island, or did something happen to her there?

In 1986, tabloid journalist Valur Robertsson decides to write a series of articles about Lara, exactly thirty years after the disappearance. He hopes to uncover new evidence, and the articles are widely read. An elderly woman calls Valur, claiming to know where he can find Lara, giving him a few cryptic clues. The nation is told that Valur may be close to solving the case, and all eyes are on the young journalist.

On August 18, 1986, Reykjavik is celebrating its 200th anniversary, the downtown area is filled with more people than anyone has ever seen. Valur has plans to publish his final article on Lara a few days later, but in the crowds someone pushes him in front of a bus.

Valurs sister, Sunna Robertsdottir, takes on the task of investigating the case following her brothers untimely death. Burdened by grief, and armed only with Valurs old notebook on the case, she decides to find out what happend to Lara, and who murdered Valur. She uncovers the fact that a group of influential friends met regularly on the island in the summer of 1956, and one by one she tracks them down, trying to discover the truth. The city of Reykjavik is undergoing changes the first privately owned radio and TV channels are being launched, the first shopping mall is being built, and unexpectedly Reykjavik is chosen as the venue for the Reagan & Gorbachev summit. As Icelanders wait for the two world leaders, Sunna closes in on the truth and discovers what happened to Lara trying to catch a killer before he strikes again.

The story is mostly set in Reykjavik in 1986, using factual events, such as the city anniversary and the Reykjavik summit, as a background for the mystery. REYKJAVIK will be published in Iceland in the winter of 2022.

Ragnar Jonasson is an international award winning author, with over three million books sold in 36 territories. His books have been no. 1 bestsellers in Germany, where he had three books on the top ten of the Spiegel bestseller list at the same time, as well as on Amazon Kindle in the UK, Canada and Australia. His books are frequent no. 1 crime fiction bestsellers in France, and in 2021 he became the first Icelandic author to enter the Sunday Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. His series, the Dark Iceland series, and the Hulda series, are being developed for television by CBS Studios/Stampede and Warner Bros. respectively.

Katrin Jakobsdottir is the Prime Minister of Iceland. Reykjavik is her first novel. Katrin holds a Masters Degree in Icelandic literature, and has been a member of parliament since 2007. Previously she held the position of Minister of Education. Katrin wrote her masters thesis on Icelandic crime fiction author Arnaldur Indridason.