Book Review: Girls Who Lie, Forbidden Iceland Book 2, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, translated by Victoria Cribb
Mystery: Girls Who Lie, Forbidden Iceland Book 2, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, translated by Victoria Cribb
Blog Tour July 26, 2021
Girls Who Lie may be the mostly aptly titled psychological thriller/police procedural I have ever read. Most of the characters are female. The victim is female. Most of the suspects are female. There are teenage daughters involved. The lead police detective on the case is female. The author is female. And arguably, all of them are lying, even the author!
Of course, it is a work of fiction, so I suppose we can give the author a pass.
A body is found, partially decomposed, lying in a hidden cave in the midst of a lava field. Police quickly determine that it is the body of a woman who went missing and was presumed to have killed herself seven months before. The wounds on the corpse make it obvious that she was murdered. Now, seven months later, a homicide investigation opens.
After seven months, though, memories have grown fuzzy. Clues were missed and are now missing since they were not given consideration at the time. Was this crime by someone who knew the victim? Or was it a random killing by a stranger?
Interlude chapters looking back at the difficult life of a single mother add to the story’s depth and complexity. The victim was a single mother who had a troubled relationship with her daughter. Since her disappearance the daughter has been living with a “care” family, a family who had been part of her life for more than a decade ever since the victim left her toddler child alone for three days. They had wanted to adopt her then. When the mother went clean and sober, custody was restored but the foster family still took the daughter every other weekend to give the mother a break. These interlude chapters go back to the longing of the single mother to provide a safe and stable home for this daughter she never really bonded to, the child of a regretted and short relationship.
Eva Björg Ægisdóttir is one of the few authors who keeps me guessing until the very end. There were pieces of the puzzle I did not put into place until they were revealed. Lies upon lies may make for very fraught relationships. In this case, though, they make for a very chilling and well-crafted novel.
Our thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for our copy of Girls Who Lie, given in exchange for our honest review. The opinions here are solely those of Scintilla. For other perspectives on this book, check out the other bloggers on this tour.
Book Review: Girls Who Lie, Forbidden Iceland Book 2, Eva Björg Ægisdóttir, translated by Victoria Cribb
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