Brief Mention: CAGE by Lilja Sigurðardóttir, Intense Icelandic Crime Fiction

Even before opening CAGE, the new crime novel from Iceland's Lilja Sigurðardóttir, there are three big "yes I want to read this" aspects to appreciate: (1) This is book three in Sigurðardóttir's outstanding Reykjavik noir series, which began with Snare, followed by Trap. (2) The translator is Quentin Bates, an award-winning crime novelist himself. (3) The publisher is Orenda Books, which is steadily and rapidly bringing outrageous and outstanding European fiction across the ocean. And here's a bonus point: The cover blurb is from the amazing Val McDermid.

Here is the only reason not to crack it open: The sex scenes in it are often quirky and sometimes sadistic. Although also sometimes heartbreakingly tender. Make your own choice on that basis.

The book opens with Agla, a gifted financial criminal, approaching the end of her prison sentence. Heartbroken at a lover's refusal before her time in jail, she's stayed depressed, isolated, and angry during her sentence—where she's also one of the few lesbians. When a cute and quirky woman seduces her in prison, she loses her heart all over again, and hopes for a life of love after release.

It's not that simple, though, because both of them and the people they connect with have dangerous ties to complex international criminal networks. And where there's high finance in such crime, there's also sexual trafficking of various sorts. It heats up quickly, starting with this prison visit:

'Yes, I know him,' Agla had said two weeks ago, and she had signed the visit request, even though she had never heard of this man before. Her curiosity had been sparked by the email in which he requested a visit. He had stated that there was an important business matter they should meet to discuss. She had forgotten about it until now. ...

He stood up and held his business card up to the glass. She could see a little picture of him in one corner, under the company's logo. Agla raised an eyebrow. International companies didn't make a habit of searching out convicts in Icelandic prisons to offer them work.

Pair these strands with a journalist who gets in over her head, and a pair of teens setting up an explosive hate crime, and CAGE is nonstop action all the way. Don't pick it up, of course, if the kinky sex will bother you -- but you can rely on a sort of justice eventually being established. It's a good ride.

Books by this author are arriving in the US a couple of years behind their European publication -- understandable with the time for translation. And worth waiting for.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Icelandic Noir: SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir

Publisher Minotaur Books has labeled SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME, the February release from Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, "a thriller." That's not the half of it -- this intense and thoroughly frightening investigation featuring Thóra Gudmundsdóttir (fifth in the series) is also a ghost story, a horror story, and an entangled and engrossing investigation into crime and criminals.

Investigating on behalf of her legal office, Thóra Gudmundsdóttir goes to a secure psychiatric facility to meet a very twisted and unpleasant long-term inmate who wants to sponsor re-opening a case -- but not his own. It's unclear why, but he asserts that a younger man at the facility, Jakob, who has Down Syndrome, isn't guilty of the arson that's put him here. The investigation bumps up against more death and destruction, and although Thóra realizes she's being used in some way, there has clearly been a miscarriage of justice and her task is to prove it and rebalance the scales.

Brace for a slight resistance in the translation, as well as the protagonist -- although Thóra is clearly heroic in her choice to accept the case and investigate a series of horrible events, it's hard to warm up to her. It's her mission that's compelling, instead: to learn rapidly the laws around imprisonment of the disabled, to protect herself from the air of menace surrounding so many people in this investigation, and prevent the unpleasant and even evil aspects of the case from affecting her home.

"Noir" means black, and this one's steadfastly dark in subject matter; it's a good fit if you're a Kurt Wallander fan, isn't as extreme as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and gives a persuasive look at social aspects of crime that need attention. It's not necessary to read Yrsa's earlier work, but if you're collecting Scandinavian or, more broadly, international noir, I'd recommend the full series.