When an empty luxury yacht literally bangs into the harbor dock of Reykjavik, Iceland, no one knows what happened to the crew or the young family aboard. There is one daughter left, a toddler who had been staying with her grandparents. On child's behalf, lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottir must prove to the life insurance company that the parents definitively died at sea. But how? And how did it happen? An eerie and brilliantly constructed mystery.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s suspenseful and well written. The best I’ve read by this author. Couldn’t wait to finish it to found out who did it and why.

Agonizingly slow mystery that leads to a bitter ending. Not my thing.

Not bad. It kept my interest and was a quick read, but I didn't enjoy it as much as other Nordic crime novels, e.g., the Erlendur series of police procedurals. A luxury yacht runs aground in Reykjavik, Iceland with no passengers or crew. A family was supposed to be on board (husband Aegir, wife Lara, and their twin daughters) when it set off from Portugal. Aegir's elderly parents who were babysitting for his youngest daughter contact lawyer Thora G. to see if she can help them arrange for a life insurance settlement and with custody issues. Thora ends up looking into the case and also the possibility that Aegir may have intended to go missing. The book is written in chapters alternating between Thora's investigation and what happened to Aegir and the others on board. The shipboard sections are often very creepy (piquing the interest of my husband who loves horror when I told him some things about the book). I thought the ending seemed a bit rushed, and sort of melodramatic (I could imagine this being made into a movie with lots of plot twists), but overall the book was entertaining. I might check out other books by this author.

Rating 3.4* out of 5. This book sat on my shelf for more than a year. The first book I read by the same author had some paranormal aspect, which I find really off-putting for "reality set" fiction. This book was, despite the blurb, free of ghosts, if not of ghostly aspects.

A luxury yacht arrives in Reykjavik without crew or passengers. Everyone is baffled. There was a family on board, parents and twin girls. They have a third child, too small to join, staying with grandparents. The latter want to see life insurance settled so that they can take care of the little girl. Insurance companies of course, are loath to make big pay-outs for people without death certificates. So lawyer Tora tries to help them.

Intertwined with Tora's search for answers, is the story of the cruise as told by the family with the twins. It's a troubled one, increasingly claustrophobic. The author does an excellent job building atmosphere. The ending fell a little bit flat, but nonetheless, I'm more inclined to read more from this author now than I was before reading this book.

The best I´ve read from Sigurdardottir so far. But then, each of her books is great. This one had a definite mystery factor to it, which made reading even more cempelling. Although you may suspect the actual culprit rather early in the book, this makes it nevertheless an absolutely fascinating read. Until the end I thought that there MAY be another ending...
Just great!

I wanted this book to end, maybe because I figured out the fate of everyone around the middle of the book. The killer I kind of guessed but how it was done was a surprise. A good story but in my opinion not a great book, though I will read more of this author.

This book starts great with a good mystery. A large yacht arrives at the harbor empty. But the rest of the book, split between events on the yacht and the investigation later are just so far fetched and the conclusion way too detached from the actual story.