Reykjavik, Iceland – December 2005

Thora Gudmundsdóttir is a divorced mother of a sixteen-year-old boy and a younger girl. She practices law in a marginally profitable law partnership with the secretary from hell who came as part of the building’s lease. When Thora receives a call from Amelia Guntlieb, wife of a rich German banker offering her twice her normal rate, she listens. One of Thora’s former professors from when she studied in Berlin recommended her to Frau Guntlieb. Amelia’s son, Harold Guntlieb, a student at the University of Iceland, had been murdered. Thora knew this. She also knew Harold’s friend, a known drug dealer, stands accused. Amelia wants Thora to investigate the crime further. She isn’t convinced the suspect committed the murder. She wants someone impartial to look over the case, someone who speaks German, for this person must work with the representative of the family, Matthew Reich. Matthew is a security manager for the Guntlieb family’s business.

Harold’s body had been found in a university locker, falling into the arms of one of his professors when the door was opened. He had been asphyxiated, his eyes gouged out and a witch’s rune carved in his body. They eyes were not recovered, and a large amount of money was missing from his bank account.

Thora soon learned Harold was an unusual young man. His practice of erotic asphyxiation may have led to his early dismissal from the military. He had many body piercings. His tongue was split to replicate a snake’s. He had inherited his grandfather’s fortune, his art collection, and his interest in witchcraft and torture. His apartment’s walls were covered with his grandfather’s priceless, but gruesome historical depictions of various means of torture. Harold had been researching the witch trials in Iceland, where more men than women were burned alive. Another preoccupation was his search for the book Malleus Maleficarum, or Witch’s Hammer. He believed the original manuscript had been hidden in Iceland centuries ago.

This all sounds very horrific, but Thora handles her assignment with mendacity, understanding for those she interviews, and sympathy for the hapless men and women of the past who suffered these awful tortures and forms of death. She is no pushover for anyone, but an independent thinker who takes methodical action on her thoughts. While Harold’s murder is the main plot, there are three sub plots to the investigation. One deals with the Inquisition, the Reformation and with the witch trials. This is balanced by the subtle romantic interactions between Thora and Matthew. The third thread is Thora’s relationship with her family. However, the underlying theme on motherhood is what binds the story into a fascinating tale and where Thora
shines as a character.

LAST RITUALS' subtitle states, An Icelandic Novel of Secret Symbols, Medieval Witchcraft, and Modern Murder, and was first published there in 2005. The story certainly fulfills that promise. For me, this was a fascinating read, although a sometimes difficult one. Even though I couldn’t pronounce the names and locations, and the tundra-like landscape described was entirely foreign, the Reykjavik youth subculture that mixes drugs and the occult, the problems families face, and the agents of violence seemed universal in nature. It is well told story about mistakes, compassion, and forgiveness. I loved how the author, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, took me somewhere I’d never been before, so I highly recommend LAST RITUALS.

Robin Lee