18 October 2016

Mystery told through events

The last book by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir that I read was ponderous, mostly because the narrator told the story ponderously.

This new one, The Silence of the Sea, hooked me at the beginning and kept me going through the whole plot. It begins when a luxury yacht sails into the harbor in Reykjavik, Iceland. It had come from Spain. It crashes into a jetty in the harbor. No one is aboard the ship.

Well, what happened to the crew? And to the passengers? An Icelandic bank had repossessed the yacht. A banker who had gone to Spain to do the repossession paperwork was bringing his family (wife and two daughters) home on the yacht.

Yrsa tells the story through a series of flashbacks during the cruise. The flashbacks are mostly told from the banker's point of view, but there are other people's flashbacks too.

Meanwhile in Reykjavik, rumors circulate about a curse on the yacht and its owners. Lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir is hired by the banker's father to sort out the legalities and liabilities. The closest thing to a living helper is a sailor who was supposed to be on the crew, but who broke a leg just before the ship sailed. He's actually less help than Thóra hoped for.

Oh, and then there's the problem of the boat's owner who has either gone missing or flown to Brazil to avoid bankruptcy. Well, that's what people thought until her body washes up on an Icelandic shore. And the owner's personal maid, has also disappeared. Then the partial body of one of the yacht's crew comes ashore in Iceland.

The story is nicely complicated and resolution seems as ghostly as the spirit that has been seen on the yacht.

Not to worry, Yrsa wraps the story up in an inventive and surprising way. It was a good book and a great antidote to the previous book (Someone to Watch Over Me).

Have you read The Silence of the Sea? What did you think of it? Write and tell this little bit of the world what you thought.


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