The Silence of the Sea (Thóra Gudmundsdóttir Series #6)

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Overview

Winner of the Petrona Award 2015!

From the queen of Icelandic crime fiction comes a truly chilling story that will leave readers breathless right up to the memorable ending. This is possibly her best book yet. Bestselling and award-winning Icelandic crime author Yrsa Sigurdardóttir has produced here a dazzling display of brilliant crime writing that is both groundbreaking and immensely satisfying.

As The Silence of the Sea opens, a luxury yacht crashes into a Reykjavik pier. But the boat is empty; no one is on board. What has happened to the crew? And what has happened to the family who were very much present when the yacht left Lisbon?

What should Thora Gudmundsdottir, the series sleuth, make of the rumors that the vessel was cursed? She is spooked even more when she boards the yacht and thinks she sees one of the missing children. Where is Karitas, the glamorous young wife of the yacht's former owner? And whose is the body that has washed up further along the shore?

The most chilling novel yet from Yrsa Sigurdardottir, an international best-selling author at the height of her powers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250115553
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/31/2017
Series:	Thóra Gudmundsdóttir Series , #6
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	1,173,442
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

YRSA SIGURDARDÓTTIR (pronounced UR-suh SIG-ur-dar-daughter) lives with her family in Reykjavík. She is a director of one of Iceland's largest engineering firms. Her work is climbing bestseller lists all over the world, and films are currently in production for several of her books. Her books include, The Day is Dark and Ashes to Dust.

Editorial Reviews

A tour de force capped by a haunting final scene that will linger in your mind.” —Kirkus (starred)

“A gripping, scary tale with a little bit of Sigurdardottir's signature supernatural flair.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer (Grade:A)

“This story’s mystery is flawless and its eeriness unshakable.” —Booklist (starred)

“A top-notch plot-driven novel that scores high marks for its chill factor.” —Reactions to Reading

“A locked-boat mystery enhanced with a hint of ghosts, this deliciously eerie variation on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians won the Petrona Award for best Scandinavian crime novel in 2015.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)


“Sigurdardottir has created a clever, seaborne locked-room puzzle with a touch of the supernatural.” —Seattle Times

“This spooky, haunting thriller, which won the 2015 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the Year, will grab the attention of readers who enjoyed Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.” —Library Journal (starred)

“[A] particularly propulsive…pleasurably creepy read.” —Boston Globe

“…no one knows how to create a poisonous atmosphere quite as well as Sigurdardottir.” —Providence Journal

From the Publisher

★ 12/21/2015
When a yacht crashes into a Reykjavík harbor jetty in the prologue of Sigurdardóttir’s outstanding sixth Thóra Gudmundsdóttir thriller (after 2015’s Someone to Watch over Me), onlookers are shocked to find no one aboard—no captain, no crew, and no sign of the young family that was traveling with them. Margeir Karelsson and Sigrídur Veturlidadóttir retain attorney Thóra to investigate and provide proof of death for their missing son, his wife, and their twin granddaughters. At stake is the life insurance payout, as well as the fate of the twins’ two-year-old sister, left behind in the grandparents’ care. But why are there rumors that the yacht was cursed? Sigurdardóttir does a masterly job of weaving together the story of Thóra’s painstaking investigation with an account of the voyage and its horrifying spiral into disaster. In effect a locked-boat mystery enhanced with a hint of ghosts, this deliciously eerie variation on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians won the Petrona Award for best Scandinavian crime novel in 2015. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

05/15/2016
Winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for best Scandinavian crime novel, this modern-day Mary Celeste sea story tells of a yacht that sails into Reykjavik's harbor; the crew and family members on board are all missing. Lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir is asked to investigate on behalf of the surviving relatives. Flashbacks revealing what happened to the vanished family compliment Thora's investigations and heighten the tension. VERDICT This eerie, suspenseful addition to the "Thóra Gudmundsdóttir" series stands on its own. For fans of Nordic crime fiction and horror writer John Ajvide Lindqvist. (Xpress Reviews, 2/12/16)

Library Journal

★ 2015-12-10
Reykjavík attorney Thóra Gudmundsdóttir's sixth case (Someone to Watch Over Me, 2015, etc.) poses her a puzzle obviously inspired by the real-life 1872 case of the Mary Celeste—and fully worthy of its mysterious original. The Lady K, a yacht seized from bankrupt businessman Gulam and sailed from Lisbon to Iceland by a skeleton crew, arrives in Reykjavík harbor without a soul aboard. There's no trace of Capt. Thráinn or of his crew members, Halli and Loftur, or of Ægir, a member of the bank's resolution committee who made the trip with his wife, Lára, and their 4-year-old twin daughters, Arna and Bylgja. Despite the absence of any corpses, Ægir's parents, Margeir Karelsson and Sigrídur Veturlidadóttir, want the insurance company to pay the hefty policy he took out, and they want the court to name them guardians of Sigga Dögg, their surviving 2-year-old granddaughter—an uphill battle, Thóra warns them. But she finds she can't accept these commissions without discovering what actually became of Ægir and Lára and their shipmates. In alternating chapters, Sigurdardóttir follows Thóra's painfully matter-of-fact investigation and goes back a few days to cover the Lady K's ill-fated final voyage, as a series of escalating misfortunes—a tangle with a container from a neighboring ship, the loss of radio communications, grisly discoveries on and off the yacht—leads to a wholesale breakdown among the shipmates that turns the trip into a journey to hell. The trick of alternating chapters between the present and the very recent past shouldn't work, but it does, producing a tour de force capped by a haunting final scene that will linger in your mind long after the cumbersome explanation of how the trick was worked.

Kirkus Reviews