As you can guess from the title, a blizzard strikes. But this is no run of the mill blizzard. This blizzard brings with it “things” that destroy families for years to come. Although the premise sounded fascinating, this book did not live up to its promise. It was classified as a horror story, but it had too dull a middle to make a great impact on the readers. A blend of Agatha Christie's classic crime stories and Arnaldur Indridason's Icelandic thrillers, ... Perfectly capturing the pressures of rural life and the freezing, deadly Icelandic winter, Snowblind will keep readers on the edge of their seats--preferably snuggled beneath a warm blanket. - Shelf Awareness SONNTAGSZEITUNG / “A solid thriller with all the Scandinavian ingredients – from human interaction to evil.“ – SonntagsZeitung on SNOWBLIND

Jonasson spins an involving tale of small town police work that vividly captures the snowy setting that so affects the rookie cop. Iceland noir at its moodiest." - Booklist If I were writing a story that involved cocaine smuggling in the 1970s, this book would be the perfect textbook: it's that detailed. How to design a smuggling operation, how to scale and implement it, how to weigh, evaluate, cut and resell cocaine, it is all covered in this book. Sweeping Nordic landscapes, snowstorm-induced claustrophobia, and a cast of characters reminiscent of Agatha Christie: Ragnar Jónasson's debut mystery meets all my requirements for a moody, engrossing Nordic Nordic noir read. I have been waiting to read Ragnar's Dark Iceland series for ages now, and my first foray into this rising star's works exceeded my expectations, and as a bonus, now has me itching to visit Iceland and explore Siglufjordur! Thanks to Ragnar for sending me so many gorgeous pictures of his hometown—I hope you'll enjoy the photos interspersed throughout this review! An important element I use to judge a good story is....Do I think about it the following day? Where is the author going? Are the characters real? Can I sympathize with them?....more importantly in a horror story....does it scare the hell out of me?? Let me tell you dear readers of my review that I cycle to and from work each day (ok you say what has that got to do with it....hold on I will tell you!) My 12 mile route home in the evenings is dark and lonely with only me my bike and my little light for company...the mind plays funny things and “Snowblind” became my mental companion this week as I struggled through the darkness....what was that I began to see to my left and right....???? Snowblind is a beautifully written thriller, as tense as it is terrifying – Jónasson is a writer with a big future’ Luca VesteTwelve years later the residents of Coventry have never fully recovered- feelings of guilt and loss still weigh heavily on the ones left behind. When the weather forecast calls for another super-storm- people become nervous and edgy, and when the snow starts falling- it becomes apparent that something evil came along with it....again. Ari Thor the rookie policeman is still having issues dealing with the locals as the tension that emerged in the first novel still persists. The peace of Siglufjörour is suddenly shattered when Ari’s colleague is shot at point blank range in an out of the way house. Snowblind is morally more equivocal than most traditional whodunnits, and it offers alluring glimpses of darker, and infinitely more threatening horizons’ - THE INDEPENDENT

The dark arctic winter is closing in and with a killer on the loose, Ari Thor needs to act fast to solve a puzzle of just who it may be. It is a tangled web that involves a compromised new mayor, local politics and a psychiatric ward that is rumored to have been the place where a missing person is being held. Selected as one of the debuts of the year (Crime Fiction Lover) and one of the books of the year by Bolo Books, Off the Shelf Books, Reading Room with a View, Crime Thriller Girl, Steph's Book Blog and, Grab This Book, and as one of the series of the year by Bibliophile Book Club.Mr. Golden does a good job of not letting the story stall but I did have to suspend belief at several points in the book. It's scary but then there is that but. Enjoyed Ragnar Jónasson’s Snowblind – a modern Icelandic take on an Agatha Christie-style mystery, as twisty as any slalom...’ Ian Rankin Fast forward 12 years and another storm is approaching. People are understandably skittish (me too!) and as it turns out, with good reason… Now, as a new storm approaches twelve years later, the folks of Coventry are haunted by the memories of that dreadful blizzard and those who were lost in the snow. Photographer Jake Schapiro mourns his little brother, Isaac, even as-tonight-another little boy is missing. Mechanic and part-time thief Doug Manning's life has been forever scarred by the mysterious death of his wife, Cherie, and now he’s starting over with another woman and more ambitious crimes. Police detective Joe Keenan has never been the same since that night, when he failed to save the life of a young boy . . . and the boy’s father vanished in the storm only feet away. And all the way on the other side of the country, Miri Ristani receives a phone call . . . from a man who died twelve years ago. When you add in that there were some editing and detail issues - typos and weird sentence structures and even a case of one character forgetting which city she lives in (Seattle to Portland?) - it drops down a bit more from good to just OK.

In Snowblind, four college friends have been going hunting every year together but this year instead of hunting, they are being hunted. Someone or something is stalking them through the woods & every time they think they have a planned worked out to thwart their stalkers, their stalkers are two steps ahead of them... It is a great story and as a piece of journalism it works much better. Robert Sabbag has a no-nonsense style that keeps you glued to the procedures. The most thrilling aspect is by far Zachary Swan's brilliant smuggling techniques (White Rabbit and the Brown Gold Move in particular are out of this world.) Christie would go on to have the most influence on the budding author as he started reading her novels aged twelve. As a child he read her novels first in Icelandic before he transitioned into English and went on to become a translator. It is Agatha Christie’s strengths in setting and plotting that had some of the most profound influence on Ragnar Jonasson. friends Coburn, Baumann, Shore and Vigil are once again embarking on their yearly elk hunting expedition to the aptly named and snowbound Mt Isolation. They are forced to seek refuge when Vigil suffers severe trauma and injury in a fall and are now along surrounded by the harsh elements of nature and something evil and unknown....the scene is set! “Someone or something was still out there. Watching them. Waiting”... Snowblind was a fast and furious read. McBride's tale, of an annual elk hunting trip for four college buddies now pushing towards their forties, is full of atmosphere and paranoia. While hunting, one of the hunters breaks his leg just as a blizzard is dumping foot after foot of the white stuff on the mountain. Visibility is zero and they're lost. They eventually stumble onto a dilapidated cabin to get out of the miserable weather. Unfortunately for the hunters, they aren't alone.

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

SPIEGEL ONLINE - “The plot is a successful chamber-play plot, transferred to a village. A classic who-dunnit where a whole theatre group is under suspicion. And in the end the culprit is someone you didn’t expect. What can you ask for more.” - Anne Haeming, Spiegel Online, on SNOWBLIND In the isolated Icelandic fishing village of Siglufjörður, a rookie cop newly transplanted from Reykjavík has his mettle tested by the claustrophobic conditions—and a murder. Enter Snowblind, which features snow wraiths that ride the blizzard wind and drag people to their icy deaths. Hell yeah!

ONLINE-ZEITUNG / “His language is as beautiful as the title. ‘The ground was covered in snow, the snow so white that it had almost conquered the darkness on this winter night.” I find this beautiful, so beautiful, that I could not be torn away from reading in spite of descriptions of ice and snow, even though I am certainly no fan of the winter and its side effects.” – Nicola Wagner, Online-Zeitung, 3.11.2011 on SNOWBLIND I was highly anticipating reading Snowblind this year. I've been a fan of Christopher Golden for a long time, and it has been a while since he's released a new horror book. When I heard Snowblind was going to be released, I immediately placed it on my must read list. I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. And then there’s the snow. I can’t think of another novel where snow, in all of its various manifestations, has ever been described so accurately or completely. A New England expat, I was looking. As the natural is blended with the unnatural, it makes for an interesting, creeping tension that builds to a CGI-worthy ending and, I hope, leaves the door open for a sequel. One of the biggest issues this book has is that t has too many characters. The author was trying to create a kind of small town feeling by introducing us to many people who lived through the blizzards in a particular town. This tactic works very well if you know how to go about executing it. Someone like Stephen King is a master at this. The problem in this novel is that none of the characters are developed enough to have personalities all their own, so they start to bleed into one another. As I read, I found myself wondering who a particular name referred to, which should not happen. The characters need to have unique voices that are not mistaken for other people.

Publication Order of Hidden Iceland Books

This is almost a classic Scandinavian noir setup, but Ragnar Jónasson is full of surprises ... I loved it." Mystery Scene Magazine Ragnar Jónasson writes with a chilling, poetic beauty – a must- read addition to the growing canon of Iceland Noir’ Peter James