Kin (The Helga Finnsdottir Mysteries)

This book is good. Life-disruptively good! If you like murder mysteries and/or if you like historical fiction from the viking age, please do buy this book. Snorri Kristjansson is a master of the history and period detail, but you almost don't notice because the story is so entertaining. I have never read anything like this and I can't wait until book 2 comes out and I can catch back up with Helga Finnsdottir!

Authentic characters and setting, plot moves at a perfect pace, twisting mystery.

Really great book looking forward to the next one. First Scandinavian mystery. I'll be looking for more to read in the future!

This is an excellent crime story set in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. The four siblings and heirs (three boys and girl, who is as hard as any of her brothers) to an ageing and retired Viking warlord and his wife arrive at his house for a family gathering with their spouses and family after having been away and not having seen each other for years. All are though, hard and brutal in various ways. Some are also unscrupulous and will not stop at anything to lay their hands on the treasure that their father is rumoured to have buried somewhere on his lands.Very rapidly, the old rivalries and grudges resurface, with the parents at pains to control the unruly and now grown up siblings and prevent them from getting at each other’s throats (quite literally in a couple of cases). Suddenly, one of the siblings is found dead in his bed in the early morning after being assassinated and having bled to death while blind drunk. It will be up to the heroin, Helga, the adopted daughter of the old couple, to try to unravel the mystery and find out who killed the sibling and why, as the tension grows and a second murder is committed.The quality of this book essentially rests on a carefully crafted mix of ingredients. The characterisation is excellent, with most of the characters not being quite what they seem to be and all of them having something to hide. As she learns more about the past of her troubled adopted family, Helga realises that just about all of them had a motive to commit murder and blame someone else for it. The second ingredient is – of course – the suspense which builds up little by little until the first murder and then soars as the crisis that follows breaks out. The third ingredient is the author’s ability to capture the ethos of the Dark Ages North, with its mixture of harshness, rough justice, honour and brutality, and where the women (some of them) are just as dangerous and lethal as their men folk, if not more so because they are more manipulative.Five stars for an excellent and exciting read

Excellent new copy of book at a good price and delivered promptly

A very poor mans Agatha Christie type book. The location could have been almost anywhere. I could not recommend.

...is what this book presents...heated but cold-blooded murder...kin turning against kin. Love it. Of you're looking for an easy, romantic read, look somewhere else. If you seek tension and terror, you're just right with this book...

This is an excellent crime story set in Scandinavia during the Viking Age. The four siblings and heirs (three boys and girl, who is as hard as any of her brothers) to an ageing and retired Viking warlord and his wife arrive at his house for a family gathering with their spouses and family after having been away and not having seen each other for years. All are though, hard and brutal in various ways. Some are also unscrupulous and will not stop at anything to lay their hands on the treasure that their father is rumoured to have buried somewhere on his lands.Very rapidly, the old rivalries and grudges resurface, with the parents at pains to control the unruly and now grown up siblings and prevent them from getting at each other’s throats (quite literally in a couple of cases). Suddenly, one of the siblings is found dead in his bed in the early morning after being assassinated and having bled to death while blind drunk. It will be up to the heroin, Helga, the adopted daughter of the old couple, to try to unravel the mystery and find out who killed the sibling and why, as the tension grows and a second murder is committed.The quality of this book essentially rests on a carefully crafted mix of ingredients. The characterisation is excellent, with most of the characters not being quite what they seem to be and all of them having something to hide. As she learns more about the past of her troubled adopted family, Helga realises that just about all of them had a motive to commit murder and blame someone else for it. The second ingredient is – of course – the suspense which builds up little by little until the first murder and then soars as the crisis that follows breaks out. The third ingredient is the author’s ability to capture the ethos of the Dark Ages North, with its mixture of harshness, rough justice, honour and brutality, and where the women (some of them) are just as dangerous and lethal as their men folk, if not more so because they are more manipulative.Five stars for an excellent and exciting read

This is an extremely well written murder mystery with echoes to Poirot and Sherlock but set within the Viking era.For one who is not usually patient enough for crime mysteries I was instantly gripped.The dynamic and variety of characters that make up this extended family reunion, both men, women and children, are so 3D, realistic and exhibit personalities that we may all recognise in ourselves and our own families.Yet the tensions and drama are wrapped around a mystery not just who will be murdered but the cause of death but literal and motive, who did it and who knows... and with a fanastic cast of suspects and so many clues or misleading clues... it really does keep the reader and the inquisitive character of Helga, guessing until the final pages.I am extremely impressed in how superbly enjoyable this Viking Noir was to read and I am delighted that there will be another one.