When I received the email about this, the premise of sounded so good that despite it being the second in a series I jumped at the chance to be able to join the blog tour for Girls Who Lie by Eva Björg Ægisdottir.
Girls Who Lie focusses on the disappearance of single mother Marianna. It is assumed that she has committed suicide until her body is discovered and it’s clearly murder. Her daughter Hekla is in foster care but seems to be coping well at least to start with. Police Officer Elma and her colleagues take on the case of Marianna and soon get drawn into what becomes an increasingly complex case. Meanwhile 15 years previously another single mother is struggling to bond with her new born child and to make a new life for herself.
Girls Who Lie was an excellent read that captivated me from the start. The story flits between the two timelines with ease as we uncover the truth about what happened to Marianne and Hekla, as well as the strange lonely girl in the past. The historical element first person chapters were especially chilling and created a interesting dimension to the police procedural element of the main story.
I enjoyed finding out about the main character Elma, and about her relationship with her own family which becomes more fraught as she puts her desire to find out the truth ahead of everything else. Like all good detectives Elma has a complicated background but I didn’t find this over powered the mystery which was still the main focus of the story.
The writing in this novel can only be described as beautiful, obviously it is translated but perfectly so. The descriptions of Iceland and the town this is set in are really intriguing and I found myself googling lots of places such as lava fields as I read on.
The story itself was compelling and it was littered with misdirection and red herrings that made it a complete page turner. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it’s an excellent addition to my Nordic Noir collection and I have already ordered her first The Creak on the Stairs so I can catch up with Elma from the beginning.
To find out what others thought of Girls Who Lie you can visit the other stops on the blog tour:
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