When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she’s taken her own life … until her body is found on the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected fifteen-year-old daughter Hekla has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

Fifteen years earlier, a desperate new mother lies in a maternity ward, unable to look at her own child, the start of an odd and broken relationship that leads to a shocking tragedy.

Police officer Elma and her colleagues take on the case, which becomes increasingly complex, as the number of suspects grows and new light is shed on Maríanna’s past – and the childhood of a girl who never was like the others…

My thanks to Karen at Orenda Books for my review copy and to Anne Cater of Random Things Blog Tours for the opportunity to host this leg of the Girls Who Lie Blog Tour.

After last year’s introduction to the Forbidden Iceland series (The Creak on the Stairs) it is a welcome return for Elma the Icelandic police officer who is the lead character and the investigator tasked with these challenging investigations.

Seven months before our story begins a single mother (Maríanna) left her house and walked out on her teenage daughter. At least this is how things appeared, Maríanna had left a note for her daughter which seemed to apologise for her decicion to leave. She never returned and given that it was common knowledge Maríanna had struggled with parenting and had trouble bonding with her daughter nobody really questionned the initial decicion that she had taken her own life.

Back to the present and Elma is in an Icelandic cave and looking at Maríanna’s body. The seven months have not left Maríanna in an easily recognisable state but the cave protected her body from many of the elements and the police pathologist is certain that Maríanna did not take her own life.  The police are now looking at a murder investigation but seven months on many memories are clouded and the questions which should have been asked when Maríanna first disappeared are less easily answered.

Interspersed between the chapters which track Elma’s investigation are some flashback/memory sections where a young mother recounts the problems she is experiencing. She did not wish to be a mother and she does not think she can do it.  As her child grows older the subsequent sequences show the pair have no relationship and the mother cannot control (or even communicate with) her daugher. These are awkward and uncomfortable reads and while it sounds like you are reading Maríanna’s story you just cannot be sure this is the case.

As for Maríanna’s daughter. When she was young she would do short foster stays with a family. This would be at times when Maríanna was unable to cope, when she went off the rails for a period and just week on week. The foster family hoped Maríanna would put her daughter to them permanently but Maríanna never made that step and kept bringing her daughter home week on week.  Once Maríanna walked out on her apparent suicide the foster arrangement became permanent. Now there is a new family structure in place, a happy family, and the police coming round to ask questions will not be condusive to a quiet and relaxing situation. Expect people to lie to protect their positions and the life they have established for themselves – afterall, the book is call Girls Who Lie.

When you’re reading translated fiction and you totally forget you are reading translated fiction then you know you have been well cared for by a top notch translator. All the plaudits to Victoria Cribb for taking Girls Who Lie and bringing it to the English speakers (readers) who would otherwise have missed out on Elma’s second outing.

It feels a slow burn at times and Elma even notes  but the journey through Girls Who Lie is absolutely worth it and I hope you find you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Girls Who Lie is available in paperback, digital and audiobook format.  You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08T5VZ6MK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1