The Girl Who Died: A Novel

Synopsis

From Ragnar Jonasson, the award-winning author of the international bestselling Ari Thor series, The Girl Who Died is a standalone thriller about a young woman seeking a new start in a secluded village where a small community is desperate to protect its secrets.

Teacher Wanted At the Edge of the World

Una wants nothing more than to teach, but she has been unable to secure steady employment in Reykjavik. Her savings are depleted, her love life is nonexistent, and she cannot face another winter staring at the four walls of her shabby apartment. Celebrating Christmas and ringing in 1986 in the remote fishing hamlet of Skalar seems like a small price to pay for a chance to earn some teaching credentials and get her life back on track.

But Skalar isn’t just one of Iceland’s most isolated villages, it is home to just ten people. Una’s only students are two girls aged seven and nine. Teaching them only occupies so many hours in a day and the few adults she interacts with are civil but distant. She only seems to connect with Thor, a man she shares an attraction with but who is determined to keep her at arm’s length.

As darkness descends throughout the bleak winter, Una finds herself more often than not in her rented attic space—the site of a local legendary haunting—drinking her loneliness away. She is plagued by nightmares of a little girl in a white dress singing a lullaby. And when a sudden tragedy echoes an event long buried in Skalar’s past, the villagers become even more guarded, leaving a suspicious Una seeking to uncover a shocking truth that’s been kept secret for generations.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books

"Is this the best crime writer in the world today? If you're looking for a mystery to get lost in during lockdown..." —The Times, UK

"A world-class crime writer...One of the most astonishing plots of modern crime fiction" —Sunday Times, UK

"It is nothing less than a landmark in modern crime fiction." —The Times, UK