Review copy courtesy of the publisher, Corylus Books – thank you.
Translated by Quentin Bates
The arrival of each newly translated novel in the self-titled Stella Blómkvist series is cause for celebration! Although they could be read individually, this fourth one does feature some of the Reykjavik underground’s baddies who cropped up in the third novel, and the developments in Stella and Rannveig’s relationship are ongoing from the second novel where they met. My links to the previous three are below:
As usual, where social justice is involved, Stella feels compelled to take on these cases, and as the novel begins, she has agreed to take on a cold case of wrongful conviction. She was approached by a TV journalist to help get the case against a serial rapist reopened. The problem is the identity of said rapist!
‘Who’s the guy?’
‘Ólafur Bjarni Hreggviðsson.’
‘Wow!’
I lean forward over the desk.
‘You’re telling me the big-mouthed chauvinist pig the Minster of Foreign Affairs picked as his adviser is a rapist?’
Stella’s partner Rannveig is making a documentary about women wrongly convicted and had asked Stella to check out one of her interviewees. They travel out of the city to Reykholt, where she lives. Hjördís had been convicted of attempting to murder her personal trainer, who was left severely disabled. She’d been having an affair with him, but she was one of a whole string of women the predator personal trainer had won over. Stella agrees to take her on.
Staying over in Reykholt, once Rannveig is asleep, Stella goes for a walk in the early morning. Approaching Snorri’s pool (named for a 13thC historian) she finds a man sitting there – with an axe in his chest! The man is soon identified as Kristinn Ófeigsson, a well-known artist. Then things start to get complicated for the arrest a young man for the murder – Hjördís’s son Gunnar! Stella is on the case. Kristinn used to live for part of the year in Thailand, and his Thai wife died in unusual circumstances. His two children, Jónatan and Thuríður pose different problems, and Thuríður asks Stella to help her.
Then one of the good men in the Icelandic police force, Chief Superintendent Vigberger Antonsson, is arrested, accused of bribery and corruption – associated with the big case and those aforementioned villains in the last book. He needs Stella to represent him.
She is fully stretched, and some, but there’s also the situation at home, as Rannveig is ill. Rannveig is stoic, she wants to finish her film, she will carry on working as long as possible, and she insists Stella does too. And there’s still the question of who is Stella’s daughter’s father.
Stella’s beloved characteristics are all there, her forthright approach to those in authority who’d thwart her; her beloved Jack Daniels and silver Mercedes, her funny expressions, and her mother’s aphorisms at chapter ends, but soft Stella is there too with her daughter and lover. The crimes are complex and twisted and show how interconnected people often are in Iceland.
In short The Murder Pool is the best Stella yet.
The Murder Pool by Stella Blómkvist (2019), transl. Quentin Bates (2025) – Corylus Books 2026, flapped paperback original, 294 pages.
