E-Book, Englisch, 276 Seiten
Júlíusdóttir Dead Sweet
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-914585-31-9
Verlag: Orenda Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
This year's most gripping debut thriller - first in an ADDICTIVE new Scandinavian Noir series...
E-Book, Englisch, 276 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-914585-31-9
Verlag: Orenda Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Katrín received the Blackbird Award, an Icelandic crime-writing prize, for her first novel, Dead Sweet in 2020. Her debut novel was reviewed well by critics and hit the best-selling lists in the first weeks after publication. Katrín has a political background and was a member of Parliament from 2003 until 2016. Before she was elected to Parliament, Katrín was an advisor and project manager at a tech company and a senior buyer and CEO in the retail sector, as well as the Managing Director of a student union during her uni years. She worked from a young age in the fishing industry, as a store clerk and took nighttime shifts at a pizza place. She studied Anthropology and has an MBA from Reykjavík University. She was raised in Kópavogur, about 15 minutes' drive from downtown Reykjavík. She now lives in the neighbouring town of Garðabær with her family. She is married to author Bjarni M. Bjarnason, who encouraged her to start writing. They have four boys.
Weitere Infos & Material
Erla was up early on the day of the party. She’d had a sleepless night, but there had been a sense of peace in her wakefulness. A peace she had long been seeking.
She had been planning the party for many months. Óttar was the love of her life – the man she wanted to spend the rest of her days with. He was popular, strong and influential. She had even announced to her friends that in him she had found an alpha male. He worked long hours, and was often a little preoccupied, but he could also be unbelievably charming. He brought her beautiful gifts, opened doors for her and sent flowers to her at work; just the way it should be. Her friends liked him – a lot; sometimes she even thought they were envious. This wasn’t so much envy over him, as of their lifestyle. They weren’t living together, but they spent every weekend in each other’s company, normally in bed, when they weren’t travelling the world. There wasn’t a restaurant in the city where they hadn’t eaten. There were invitations to every cultural event – to all the premieres and opening nights.
These last eighteen months had been a wonderful adventure. As the weeks passed, Erla found her love for Óttar deepen. She was now thirty-seven, and sensed that she was ready for something more. This was a new feeling. As a child she had looked forward to a family of her own: Mum, Dad, children. Then the longing had somehow passed, and Erla had enjoyed life to the full, working her dream job and being with her friends. But something changed when Óttar came on the scene. Maybe it was a cliché – sometimes life is a cliché – but Erla began to feel a kind of fear of time, of how it flew by so quickly.
The day of Óttar’s fiftieth had finally come. It was a beautiful Thursday in July and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. He thought he was on his way to a modest barbecue with his mother and his sister, and, of course, Erla. When she had met him the previous day he had suspected nothing, not a thing. She had told him to look forward to a cosy evening with the most important women in his life, and that he needed to be home by half past six. Nothing could be allowed to go wrong. Erla pulled herself out of bed and called the caterer to make sure everything was ready for tonight.
‘I put the stack of pancakes on the table in the living room,’ warbled Thrúður, Óttar’s mother.
Thrúður had a slight figure. In certain respects she was like Erla, both of them of medium height, with narrow hips but broader across the shoulders and chest than most women. Erla’s mother had told her that she should bear her shoulders with pride, as they showed that her ancestors had been women who had toiled tirelessly in the wild northern winds in order to keep their heads above water and their families alive.
‘Hard-working women need space for their lungs,’ she had said joyfully.
The memory brought a smile to Erla’s lips.
Thrúður normally had her dark, grey-shot hair pulled into a neat ponytail at the back of her head, but on special occasions she would put it up in an immaculate bun. She used make-up sparingly, as she had a fairly dark complexion, although she always wore lipstick, alternating three colours, depending on the occasion. Today it was deep red. This meant the occasion was seriously important. For her only son’s big birthday, anything less would be unthinkable.
Erla had brought in a caterer to provide the food. A delightful table had been set up, decorated with flower arrangements and bearing an elegant display of small dishes all on an American barbecue theme. He loved barbecue cuisine. A great deal of effort had gone into preparing the table and the food so that his favourite dishes were tastefully presented, but the guests didn’t feel drenched in barbecue sauce or left the party with it on their fine clothing.
Erla had told his mother that she didn’t need to do anything. All the same, Thrúður had arrived with a stack of rolled, sugared pancakes. Erla checked the table and noticed the pile sitting in its brown ovenproof bowl, sticking out of the tasteful table setting as if a tower block had been erected in the middle of the old city. She had placed it between the mini-burgers and the stylish plate of delicate mac and cheese dishes.
‘Wonderful, thank you!’ Erla said, giving Thrúður a smile that was entirely fake. She would ask the chef to re-arrange things later on, when Thrúður would be less likely to notice. She couldn’t stand those bloody sugar-sweet pancakes of theirs.
She had noticed early on in their relationship that Óttar always made an effort to show his mother his best side. And she couldn’t help finding this somehow fake, as if he were playing the role of the perfect, loving son. No one ever mentioned his father, who had left the country, abandoning his young family, and never returning. Or at least that was the story. Óttar had told her that Thrúður had searched for him for weeks, asking everyone they knew if they’d seen him, calling hotels around the world and weeping inconsolably.
Then, one morning he had woken up to find that everything had changed. His mother had been ready with porridge and sweet, sugared pancakes, immaculate and with a new smile on her lips. The appearance of that smile had been the moment when his father vanished from their lives. His name was never mentioned again. That smile remained with them to this day, and Erla noticed that Óttar frequently used the same smile himself in his dealings with his mother.
Óttar’s sister Stefanía tapped at the door and came in.
‘Hæ! Mum? Erla? Sorry I’m late. I thought I’d never get away. Work is just crazy right now. Everyone’s making the most of the fine weather and they all want gardening advice.’
Thrúður glowed, telling her not to worry, that the chef had prepared everything, while she had made the sugared pancakes that she and her brother were so fond of, so everything was ready. Under other circumstances, Erla might have taken offence at Thrúður making no mention of all the efforts she had put into organising the party. But today Erla couldn’t find it in herself to care.
The three of them, Thrúður, Stefania and Óttar, had a world of their own, each with a distinct role to play. The link between mother and daughter was straightforward: each enjoyed the support of the other and they were closer than many mother-daughter relationships Erla knew of. Óttar’s connection with his sister, who was two years his elder, was similar to his relationship with his mother. It was as if Stefanía worried about him constantly, and felt she had to keep a watchful eye on him. Stefanía was something of a mystery to Erla. She lived alone and was at her best at the garden centre where she worked as a horticulturist. She was outstandingly attractive, with thick, dark hair that flowed halfway down her back, and almond-shaped green eyes. She was medium height but with a more delicate frame than her mother’s. She preferred jeans and hoodies, but had made an effort today, with a pair of close-fitting, brightly coloured trousers and a white blouse that highlighted her elegant figure and natural beauty. Her nature was more relaxed than Óttar’s or Thrúður’s, and she laughed more easily. In this respect Erla envied her – Stefanía appeared to be completely satisfied with the little world she had created around her. She was also so positive, often fighting the corner of people she heard being talked down, pointing out that there was something good to be found in everyone. Erla felt that this was a wonderful quality.
It was almost six and the guests were starting to arrive. She had invited Óttar’s colleagues from the ministry, his golfing buddies and some old friends. She had wanted to take him by surprise by inviting people he hadn’t seen in years, but she’d had to search back a long way to track anyone down. It had turned out to be quite a challenge, as while everyone she spoke to remembered Óttar, she sensed that their connections with him lacked any real depth. Thrúður had made an attempt to dissuade her from searching too far back, encouraging her to stick with people he currently socialised with, but Erla hadn’t let herself be told. Two of his old connections from the Commercial College had shown up. They arrived together and seemed unsure of why they had been invited. They stood by one window watching the rest of the gathering curiously, not mingling with the other guests. Under other circumstances Erla would have tried to engage them in conversation, to find out a little of what Óttar had been like as a younger man, but she somehow couldn’t; instead she avoided their questioning gaze and looked away. She was beginning to feel some trepidation about this party. Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to invite the old acquaintances along. Perhaps the whole party wasn’t such a great plan after all. She wasn’t feeling that positive about it now. It was a bit of a relief that Thrúður had now taken it upon herself to look after the...
