Book #22 Burial Rites

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Burial Rites is a haunting novel, set in Iceland, and based on real events. Agnes Magnúsdóttir was the last woman to be executed in Iceland, along with Fridrik Sigurdsson, in January 1830, for the murders of Natan Ketilsson and Pétur Jónsson. Hannah Kent has spun her own take on the events that led to the convictions, based on a great deal of research and historical documents and has created an intriguing story. Agnes’s story. I recall the harsh landscape that forms the novel’s background, having visited Iceland several times myself.

There are those who have interpreted events differently. There is much speculation here. But in writing this book from the viewpoint of Agnes, Kent has composed a heartbreaking story. There is no redemption, no forgiveness. The evidence of Agnes’s guilt is compelling. But there is room for compassion from the family forced to take her in, as she awaits her execution date, and the priest tasked with absolving her and offering comfort in her desolation. We know Agnes’s fate from the beginning, but her story is utterly compelling. The final pages are heartrending.

In some respects Burial Rites reminded me of Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck. Both are Scandinavian crime stories told with great creativity.

I recommend Burial Rites without reservation.


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Wolf Winter

Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekbäck
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Quite unlike anything I have read before. Wolf Winter is a classic piece of Scandi-noir, a gripping atmospheric novel set in 1717 in Lapland. Maija and her family move away from the coast, where her husband Paavo is haunted by depression, to take over a farm on Blackasen Mountain, a scattered settlement where people keep to themselves gathering only for church or when forced into town by the bitter winter weather. Taking their goats to pasture the elder daughter Fredricka finds the mutilated body of man. The locals explain it as a wolf attack but Maija suspects these wounds are the work of man. And the murder is only a starting point. Links to the spirit world in a judgemental puritan church framework, a fear of witchcraft, simmering tensions between settlers and displaced Lapps - there is something primeval about life on the mountain. The harsh conditions, the treacherous weather all add to a deep sense of foreboding. What is finally unearthed about ‘initials carved in wood’ is both unexpected and very disturbing. Wolf Winter is lyrically written by Cecilia Ekback who is a brilliant writer. The book took her four years to complete and is a most compelling read. 

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