While there are six novels in this series, there were only three available as audiobooks from my local library, so this is going to be a quick review of the three that I have read. I’ve read 1,2, and 5, so while I’ll eventually get to the others, and that was definitely notable. So, spoilers ahead.

Snowblind follows the story of Ari Þór Arason. He is a newly minted police officer, fresh out of the academy, who takes a job in the town of Siglufjorour near the Arctic circle. Siglufjorour is the kind of place that has cruise ships of tourists stopping in the summer and is potentially cut off from other places because of snow in the winter. In his first big case in town, a young woman is found unconscious and bleeding in snow and then a writer, who is a national treasure, is found dead. Ari Þór starts uncovering local secrets in a place where no one locks their doors. He has to decide who he can trust and who he should believe, while also juggling upheaval in his personal life as his girlfriend, back in Reykjavík, isn’t thrilled by his move North. This was an interesting tale and I liked a lot of the side characters, but I wasn’t sold on Ari Þór as a character.

Blackout is set in the summer when one can expect 24 hours of light in the Northern town of Siglufjorour. However, a volcanic eruption’s ash cloud turns that bright summer days into twilight. A man is found beaten to death near a fjord and Ari Þór and the other member’s of the police force are set out to investigate. A young journalist relocates North from Reykjavík in order to investigate as well. This is a dark and twisty kind of story where pieces of the past are uncovered while our main characters are dealing with both personal horror and the ongoing horror of the murder. I liked the introduction of the reporter and her perspective, although I’m still kind of meh on Ari Þór.

Okay, so this one took a huge leap into the future because I didn’t realize at the time it was book 5 in the series. Oof. But this might be my favorite of the bunch. One of Ari Þór’s colleagues is murdered. The setting of the murder raises questions, the local politics of it all raises questions, Ari Þór’s uneasy relationship with the locals is a bit of a sticky point. There are lots of elements of human tragedy in this novel, and it kept me hooked and also really pulled on my heart strings.

Overall, I would say that this is an enjoyable series, but if I had to recommend just one of the Jónasson’s series, I would recommend the Hidden Iceland series. There is something about Ari Þór that just kind of rubs me the wrong way. I was a bit annoyed by the number of his problems that were entirely of his own making. But, the main character in Hidden Iceland is a middle aged woman, who it might just be that I have more in common with her than I have with a brand new police dude. So, if you a brand new police officer patrolling the fjords and snow-covered roads of Northern Iceland sounds interesting to you, or if you just like murder in a small town tales, then these are for you.