(Gildran, 2015)
Sonja’s life is in tatters. After the breakdown of her marriage – when her husband catches her in bed with another woman – she loses custody of her son and is placed in dire financial straits. Desperate and broke, trying to find her feet again and hoping to build a home for her son, she finds herself crossing a line she could never have imagined.
Soon she is regularly smuggling significant amounts of drugs through Icelandic custom for a criminal syndicate that intends to make the most of her until she outlives her usefulness. She tries to tell herself that she has no choice, that she is only trying to protect her son, but even so she can’t escape the fact that she enjoys the rush of her new vocation. There is little help to be had from her unstable lover Agla, who has retreated to the bottom of a bottle to avoid facing facts about their relationship – as well as the forthcoming investigation into her role in toppling the Icelandic economy. When Sonja’s frequent travels catch the attention of ageing customs officer Bragi, who has little left to live for except his job and visits to the care home where his Alzheimer’s afflicted wife resides, a dangerous game is set into play. To save herself and her son, Sonja is forced to let the chips fall where they may.
Set during the catastrophic post-financial crash years, Lilja Sigurðardóttir’s first book in the Reykjavík Noir Trilogy is a layered crime thriller filled with deeply conflicted characters, each of whom has their own agenda.