Stella Blómkvist is so much larger than life. I’m talking, of course, about the character rather than the mysterious author the identity of whom has still not yet been determined. Stella the character, on the other hand, provides us with more of a puzzle. She’s a hard-drinking, hard-driving predator with a mix of fury and tenderness, and she powers Murder under a Midnight Sun with occasionally alarming force. All that may sound a little complicated and overblown, so let me explain.

Midnight Sun sees a complex set of mysteries come together. Blómkvist is the only person who could conceivably solve them. She roars off on a snowmobile, comes a cropper, and in the cave into which she falls, finds a dead body. This glacial find is to put the cold into the Cold War, as secrets from Iceland’s support for the United States against the Soviets come to the fore. A desperate father wants information; a possible father wants identification; a manipulative father wants the validation of history. Stella is the common link which brings to some the answers they seek. She, too, seeks her own answers.

There are times when we wonder what to make of Stella’s inconsistencies. She is driven and determined, and it’s clear that at least some of her self-sufficiency has arisen from appalling ill-treatment as a child. In turn she has developed her own style of parenting which is fiercely protective and which probably has no room for a father. Later, we understand that she’s open to the idea of sharing parenting but only within the context of a loving relationship. And yet that relationship, sound as it seems by the end of the novel, is the result of some dodgy seduction moves that really aren’t OK. 

Stella has a moral compass all of her own, says the text on the book jacket, but by the end of the book I’ve come to the conclusion that she represents the ambiguities and quirks that lurk in all of us. She is not – to this reader – meant to try to present to us an ideal for living. Rather, she is here to contrast two ways of living, each of which has said ambiguities and quirks. The contrast is between a kind of individualism which is represented by Stella, and different kinds of living in society – familial, social, geopolitical – which are represented by Stella’s and Rannveig’s parents and partners, the police and the Cold Warriors respectively. Each has centres of power and in this novel the ability of each type to exercise that power for good or ill is explored. We see power structures change over time – the homophobia of the Cold War days seems to be long behind Iceland now. This novel challenges our ideas of causes, of power structures, of hedonism and of freedom. Heady stuff and well executed.

The story itself is lightly done: a complex set of interlocking pieces which never seems over-bearing. Translator Quentin Bates has done a fine job keeping Stella’s turns of phrase in check and keeping us hooked in. This is a novel with pace – it flies by. You won’t want to put it down. Whether you find yourself on the side of the individual or of the group is less certain.

Thanks to Corylus Books for the review copy and to Ewa Sherman for the invitation to take part on the blog tour.