The journalist Valur Robertsson knows a fresh investigation will sell newspapers (and make his impatient editor ecstatic). He finds himself battling internal frustration and external impatience, all of which he expresses to his sister, Sunna, a slightly adrift graduate student. Despite secretive sources, legal threats and reminders that past and present are forever intertwined, Valur pushes hard to center Lara and her family in his stories. Sunna, too, will find herself drawn into the investigation, sometimes at her own peril. Jonasson and Jakobsdottir, beautifully translated by Victoria Cribb, demonstrate with understated brilliance how the truth rises to the surface, no matter how ugly it is or how powerful the players are.

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Persons: Lara, Valur Robertsson, Valur, Victoria Cribb Locations: Reykjavik