Yrsa, born 1963, is an Icelandic author.

My Soul to Take is the 2nd book in her Thóra Gudmundsdóttir series.

Perhaps my last. Too many characters. Too complicated.

The killer revealed in a way that would not impress Agatha Christie.

Like the first book, the plot sounded interesting.

In the mystical Snæfellsnes region on Iceland’s west coast – at a New Age health resort in a renovated farmhouse – the body of a young woman is discovered, savagely beaten, with pins inserted into her feet.

Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, lawyer and single mother of two, has been retained to represent the resort’s owner and prime suspect.

But a fresh corpse is not the only abomination Thóra encounters here – for local legend says this place is haunted, and a bizarre series of inexplicable occurrences soon suggests it is so.

As Thóra digs deeply into the farm’s past, she unearths a shocking history of evil and depravity, and her once-solid view of reality begins to waver.

But a second murder, shockingly similar to the first, pulls Thóra back to earth by making two inescapable truths abundantly clear: the killer she seeks is very real and is not finished yet.

… first novel in the Poirot series set at least partly in the courtroom, with lawyers and witnesses exposing the facts underlying Poirot’s solution to the crimes.

The title is drawn from a song in Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night. …

One reviewer remarked “it is economically written, the clues are placed before the reader with impeccable fairness, the red herrings are deftly laid and the solution will cause many readers to kick themselves.” …

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Five connected stories.

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and… no qualms about a little murder.

… funny, irreverent story collection by Helene Tursten …

Ever since her darling father’s untimely death when she was only eighteen, Maud has lived in the family’s spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. …

Now in her late eighties, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father’s ancient armchair. It’s a solitary existence, and she likes it that way.

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James Patterson partnered with Brian Sitts to reboot the Doc Savage stories from the 1930s and 1940s.

In the NEW book (2022) — Dr. Brandt Savage, a professor of anthropology is kidnapped off the street by the enigmatic Meed and is schooled in the fine art of assassination. 

In fact, Meed makes him something of a superman. Physically and mentally transformed.

But why?

Brandt is the great-grandson of the original Doc Savage. He has the right genetics to do what Meed needs him to do.

YES. It’s dumb. The plot makes no sense. Like the original pulp fiction, perhaps.

I’ll bet you can’t pronounce Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. 😀

Yrsa, born 1963, is an Icelandic author.

Last Rituals (2005) is the first book in her Thóra Gudmundsdóttir series.

Good, not great, is my review.

The premise is interesting:

At a university in Reykjavík, the body of a young German student is discovered, his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest.

Police waste no time in making an arrest, but the victim’s family isn’t convinced that the right man is in custody.

They ask Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, an attorney and single mother of two, to investigate.It isn’t long before Thóra and her associate, Matthew Reich, uncover the deceased student’s obsession with Iceland’s grisly history of torture, execution, and witch hunts.

But there are very contemporary horrors hidden in the long, cold shadow of dark traditions. And for two suddenly endangered investigators, nothing is quite what it seems . . . and no one can be trusted.

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