Michael Ridpath once again has proven why he is a master of crime writing with his latest Icelandic thriller, The Wanderer. Well written, well researched Ridpath really knows how to draw in the reader and keep them hooked and always leaves the read questioning whether really have worked out who is the murderer before the reveal. It is not often I have wait until a couple of pages before the reveal to guess who the killer is. Ridpath makes you keep thinking you have it, even when you haven’t. A young female Italian tourist is found murdered by the side of a church in Northern Iceland, Magnus Jonson is sent north to head up the Inquiry. To complicate matters there is a documentary film crew working at the same time, investigating one of the great Icelandic Viking mysteries, of who discovered America. At the same time a parallel story about the discovery of America, whether it was the Vikings of Columbus. That brings in the Vatican Library, rare book dealers, historians and archaeologists. Is there a historical hoax at play or is everything as it seems? When a second murder happens, and it is found to be connected to the first, Magnus has to review what he knows and how to proceed forward. What Magnus cans see is that everything seems to be connected to the documentary film crew, but he cannot see how, but he does have some suspicions. A totally absorbing read, that keeps you hooked throughout, with some fantastic characters, a great story. Michael Ridpath is a wordsmith who paints so many pictures with words, that reading this book was an absolute pleasure.

It did take me a while to read this book but that wasn't anyone's fault other than my own because university life got in the way. Nonetheless, every time I sat done to read this book I got straight into it remembering every last bit of detail from the previous chapter. Granted, when you do not know much about vikings and Norse history and mythology it takes a while to understand all the names and back ground to it but I found myself questioning everything I did know yet being educated at the same time. I was fortunate enough to go to a conference about viking settlement in the UK whilst reading this and I felt inspired wanting to learn more. The story was full a little twists and turns that I thoroughly enjoyed and I would definitely recommend it to a friend. Great to read a fictional crime novel with some truth and history behind it!

Does no one tell the truth to the police anymore? Even if they’re innocent?! It seems that everyone wants to keep their secrets to themselves in this book, even if they think the information might relate to the murder of an Italian tourist. A camera crew, who are filming a documentary about Gudrid the Wanderer in Iceland, find her body outside a church where they’re filming. Magnus Jonson is in charge of the police investigation. I really enjoyed the references to the Icelandic Sagas (I’ve now our a book of them on my Christmas list!), and Magnus seems to be a very nice police officer! Everyone else appears to just be looking out for themselves, to the detriment of everyone else. Great story though! This is the fifth in a series, I haven’t read the others, and I don’t think it actually matters story-wise. I would very much like to read the others though!!

This was the first book I had read which was set in Iceland, and although initially I struggled with some of the character and place names, once I had got my head around these, I was able to enjoy a very good crime novel. Magnus is a police officer who has returned to Iceland following a number of years in America. When an Italian tourist is found dead at a church where a film crew are working on a television series, Magnus is called in to investigate. Several more bodies follow, as does an unravelling of a long established academic truth, and Magnus faces a race against time to stop the killer. I found the story moved along at a good pace, and the characters were well rounded and believable. I'd look out for more by this author.

Iceland, 2017: When Magnus Jonson is called in to investigate the murder of a young Italian tourist at a sacred church in northern Iceland, he finds a shocked TV crew there. They are in the middle of filming a documentary on the life of Gudrid the Wanderer, the legendary female Viking who, a thousand years earlier had travelled thousands of miles, started to explore a new continent (North America), farmed in Greenland, married and had a son there, before finally returning to Iceland to settle down with her family. Magnus, who had only recently returned to the Reykjavik force after working as a detective in America, quickly comes to believe that there are probably more links to the film crew, and the focus of the documentary, than any of the crew will acknowledge. As tensions increase, old friendships are put under the spotlight and history begins to rewrite itself: a second murder shocks everyone and makes Magnus question everything he thought he knew. I found this an easy to read but engaging and entertaining story, with enough twists and turns in the search for the murderer to add an element of tension to the story-telling. The fact that by about halfway through the story I had managed to solve that mystery didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book because there were other elements which held my interest. I loved the way in which the author interwove historical links to the Icelandic Sagas with a modern-day story, using as a central theme the fact that Viking explorers discovered Greenland and North America sometime around AD 1000 – several centuries before Christopher Columbus! Although a major thread in his story is based on fictionalised historical events, in his author’s note at the end of the book he does make it clear what is fact and what is fiction. This is a reflective murder mystery rather than a “high-octane” thriller, with most of the tension in the story-telling coming from the gradual exposure of all the secrets which the various characters were trying to conceal. Although I found most of the plotting, as well as the various characters and their interrelationships interesting and reasonably credible, most of my enjoyment of this story came from two sources, the author’s evocative descriptions of Iceland and Greenland and his creative use of history. His personal fascination with both shone through his narrative and made me want to discover more, something which always adds a welcome extra dimension to my reading experience and this influenced my decision to give this story a four-star rating. However, I do have a minor niggle! Two additions would have helped me to enjoy this story even more – a map showing the various locations in Iceland (there was one for Greenland) and a guide to pronunciation of characters’ and place names! Although this is the fifth in “ The Magnus Iceland Mysteries” series, I found that it was very easy to read as a stand-alone story because there were enough hints about the main character’s background to make sense of who he was and what motivated him. It was clear from the way in which this story ended that there will be another book in the series and, when it is eventually published, I’ll be tempted to read it to discover more about Magnus, his colleagues and Icelandic life! My thanks to Corvus and Readers First for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.