Yrsa Sigurdardottir: Silence of the Sea
May. 30th, 2018 01:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bibliogrammaSilence of the Sea, Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s sixth novel featuring lawyer and often unintentional detective Thora Gudmundsdottir, begins in a dramatic fashion. It’s the middle of a cold Icelandic night, at Reykjavik harbour. A large private yacht is due to come into port.
But this isn’t simply an end to an ordinary pleasure jaunt. The ship’s voyage is linked to the resolution committee appointed to wind up the affairs of one of Iceland’s failed banks - when the luxury yacht’s owner proved unable to pay back his loans, the committee had repossessed the vessel, sending a representative to collect the yacht and sail it back from the Continent to Iceland, to be advertised for sale on the international market.
Waiting for its arrival are a handful of people - some port officials, concerned that there may be a problem, as the yacht has not answered radio signals, the port’s security guard, and a few relatives of the passengers and crew. But when the craft appears out of the darkness, it’s moving too fast, on a collision course with the quay. Racing to the crash site, the officials are shocked to discover the ship has come into port with no one aboard.
Confused, and struggling with bureaucratic details, the elderly parents of the commission representative seek out Thora for legal advice and assistance. There is a sizeable insurance policy, and the question of who will be given custody of the man’s daughter, since both he and his wife were on board the yacht, and everything is complicated by the question of whether the people who disappeared are alive or dead. One of the things Thora will have to do to solve her clients’ problems is prove beyond reasonable doubt that Aegir Margeirson and his wife Lara are dead. And thus Thora is drawn into another mystery.
Sigurdardottir tells the story in two time sequences, alternating between Thora’s persistent search for the truth if what happened to the passengers and crew of the ill-fated Lady K, and the sequence of events, from the departure from Lisbon to the final departures of the last humans alive on board. By the time the novel reaches its end, we know the whole story, even the parts that Thora can only guess at based on the evidence, and the parts that only one of those on board the Lady K knew for certain.
Sigurdardottir is a master at slowly unveiling the horrors that the human heart is capable of encompassing, and Silence of the Sea is a clear indication that she has not lost her touch.
But this isn’t simply an end to an ordinary pleasure jaunt. The ship’s voyage is linked to the resolution committee appointed to wind up the affairs of one of Iceland’s failed banks - when the luxury yacht’s owner proved unable to pay back his loans, the committee had repossessed the vessel, sending a representative to collect the yacht and sail it back from the Continent to Iceland, to be advertised for sale on the international market.
Waiting for its arrival are a handful of people - some port officials, concerned that there may be a problem, as the yacht has not answered radio signals, the port’s security guard, and a few relatives of the passengers and crew. But when the craft appears out of the darkness, it’s moving too fast, on a collision course with the quay. Racing to the crash site, the officials are shocked to discover the ship has come into port with no one aboard.
Confused, and struggling with bureaucratic details, the elderly parents of the commission representative seek out Thora for legal advice and assistance. There is a sizeable insurance policy, and the question of who will be given custody of the man’s daughter, since both he and his wife were on board the yacht, and everything is complicated by the question of whether the people who disappeared are alive or dead. One of the things Thora will have to do to solve her clients’ problems is prove beyond reasonable doubt that Aegir Margeirson and his wife Lara are dead. And thus Thora is drawn into another mystery.
Sigurdardottir tells the story in two time sequences, alternating between Thora’s persistent search for the truth if what happened to the passengers and crew of the ill-fated Lady K, and the sequence of events, from the departure from Lisbon to the final departures of the last humans alive on board. By the time the novel reaches its end, we know the whole story, even the parts that Thora can only guess at based on the evidence, and the parts that only one of those on board the Lady K knew for certain.
Sigurdardottir is a master at slowly unveiling the horrors that the human heart is capable of encompassing, and Silence of the Sea is a clear indication that she has not lost her touch.