Death on the Island is a decent murder mystery written by Eliza Reid, who turns out to be the former First Lady of Iceland. It’s a shameless homage to the great Agatha Christie, but she still reigns supreme as the Queen of Crime.
There is a remote island off the shores of Iceland in which an important meeting among the nation’s leaders and an ambassador are gathering. A high-price dinner is on the menu, with a little poison added as a surprise. An ambassador’s wife finds that she has an instinct for detection as she begins to probe the murder of her husband’s assistant. When another strange death occurs, Jane Shearer has to wonder how many others are in the crosshairs of a ruthless, clever killer.
Reid throws in many of the tropes of a classic murder mystery. You have the isolated setting, the group of eclectic characters, a sudden death while a storm rages outside. The lead character is not a professional sleuth but is apparently a little sharper than everyone else. The fact that this takes place in Iceland is kind of cool, but the Nordic mystery has been quite popular for some time now.
It’s not a bad novel. There are some interesting twists. It is notable that Reid’s husband was at one time president of Iceland for a fair amount of time so that gives the author some pretty impressive credentials. She throws in some of the local flavor quite effectively. I must confess I find her background to be more intriguing than the actual book.
It’s an enjoyable enough read, but there isn’t much here I would call all that original. Reid did do a good enough of a job where she may stay on my radar enough to entice me into her next novel.
I am sticking with the suspense genre and reading another author for the first time, although this one has been on scene for some time. Next up, I will crack open Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter.
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