Last Rituals - Yrsa Sigurdardottir

About the Author

Yrsa Sigurðardóttir (born 1963) is an Icelandic writer, of both crime novels and children's fiction. She has been writing since 1998. Her debut crime-novel was translated into English by Bernard Scudder. The central character in the crime novels so far is Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, a lawyer.Yrsa is married with two children, and she also has a career as a civil engineer.

The Plot

In LAST RITUALS, what could have been a straightforward strangling of a young man, is made macabre by the removal of both of his eyes, and a mysterious carving on his skin. The student, Harald, is German and had been researching into witchcraft, witches, and their capture and punishment for his MA at the University of Iceland. Unlike Germany, in Iceland most of the witches were men. However, both cultures seemed to have used the same 'reference' book 'Malleus Maleficarum' or Witches Hammer. Harald was obsessed with magic, the occult, witches and this book to the extent that he had a close group of friends that formed part of a secret society dedicated to their study. Harald's drug dealing friend is arrested for the murder , however Harald's mother believes that there is something more to this murder and that the police have the wrong suspect. She hires a lawyer Thora and her colleague Matthew to investigate. The pair present a contrasting dynamic with some subtle humour and gradually the pair lift the layers on Harald's secret life and the medieval history of Iceland adding and another level of interest.

The Review.

One member of the group thought it was a cracking good read, a comment from another member of group was that there was no product placement. A protracted discussion followed about the merits or otherwise of product placement with many members of the group stating that in many cases of contemporary literature it brought credibility and currency to the novels however it was agreed that in some cases the placement of product brands was gratuitous.

One member of the group found it mediocre, the beginning was promising and interesting when they were describing the history . One member said that they had failed to find a redeeming feature in the book. The vivid description of the torture was a bit sordid and the images it created somewhat unnecessary. One member described it as a caricature of a who-dunnit, although others felt it was interesting to see why the torture took place. One member was interested and started reading it with hope as it was written by an engineer, they enjoyed the relationship between Iceland and Denmark, however the felt it had been a waste of his time and read it two days flat! One of the members found the description of the torture too much to bear as it was too close to their life's experience whilst growing up of similar events in South Africa. For that reason they did not finish it as he felt he did not need to read about it. Some members enjoyed it others felt it contained gratuitous unpleasantness.

The books on offer were:

Room by Emma Donnaghue

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgur

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

Red Plenty by Francis Spufferd

The Fear by Peter Godwin

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson.

The chosen book is The Finkler Question.