An impressive debut novel by Vera Kurian, a psychologist living in Washington, DC. 

She writes what she knows in this novel.

It’s historically and technologically up-to-date. Mobile phone apps are central to the plot.

Studying young psychopaths at University — what could go wrong?

Meet Chloe Sevre.

She’s a freshman honor student, a legging-wearing hot girl next door, who also happens to be a psychopath. Her hobbies include yogalates, frat parties and plotting to kill Will Bachman, a childhood friend who grievously wronged her.

Chloe is one of seven students at her DC-based college who are part of an unusual clinical study for psychopaths—students like herself who lack empathy and can’t comprehend emotions like fear or guilt.

The study, led by a renowned psychologist, requires them to wear smart watches that track their moods and movements. …

verakurian.com

Book #3 in the Dark Iceland series is set in and around Siglufjörður, featuring Detective Ari Thor.

Fascinating location. But I’m finding the translation to English quite simplistic. That’s surprising as author Ragnar Jónasson is the guy who translated Agatha Christie into Icelandic. She inspired yet another writer of murder mysteries.

On the shores of a tranquil fjord in Northern Iceland, a man is brutally beaten to death on a bright summer’s night.

As the 24-hour light of the arctic summer is transformed into darkness by an ash cloud from a recent volcanic eruption, a young reporter leaves Reykajvik to investigate on her own, unaware that an innocent person’s life hangs in the balance.

Ari Thór Arason and his colleagues on the tiny police force in Siglufjörður struggle with an increasingly perplexing case, while their own serious personal problems push them to the limit. …

Amazon

The 2nd book in the Dark Iceland murder mystery series set in a remote fishing village in northern Iceland.

Ari is the new local policeman from away, suddenly having to deal with the murder of a policeman — his boss — shot at point-blank range.

It’s a complex plot; tangled local politics, a compromised new mayor, and a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik where someone is being held against their will. 

Meanwhile, Ari & girlfriend Kristín have reunited & set up house with their baby son.  That’s not going very well.

I’ll continue to book #3 — Black Out.

The Chessmen is last of the Lewis trilogy.

Peter May is an excellent writer.

Former police detective Fin McLeod is back on the remote Scottish Isle of Lewis of his birth.

He found work as security officer for a local landowner.  Mostly chasing down poachers.

The opening of this book is fantastic. Finn and childhood friend Whistler happened to witness a freak natural phenomenon–a bog burst–which drains a loch of all its water in a flash.

Revealed below was a mud-encased light aircraft. Finn immediately knows it’s Roddy Mackenzie plane, a friend whose flight disappeared more than seventeen years earlier.

So it begins.

Book #7 in the excellent series about a Game Warden from Wyoming.

Joe Pickett’s been hired to investigate one of the most cold-blooded mass killings in Wyoming history.

Attorney Clay McCann admitted to slaughtering four campers in a back-country corner of Yellowstone National Park—a “free-fire” zone with no residents or jurisdiction.

In this remote fifty-square-mile stretch a man can literally get away with murder.

Now McCann’s a free man, and Pickett’s about to discover his motive—one buried in Yellowstone’s rugged terrain, and as dangerous as the man who wants to keep it hidden.

CJBox.net

But is there really a part of the USA where you can kill anyone legally?

The theory: There is a 50-square-mile region in Yellowstone National Park where sloppy district boundaries would make the prosecution of serious criminal offenses unconstitutional — in other words, a region where one could get away with murder. …

Fact Check – USA Today

Click through to read the details.