Toxic

Contemporary Noir crime novel set in Reykjavik, involving drugs, organised crime, gang violence, kidnapping.

Someone’s life ebbs away one night on a darkened TV studio set. Two sidelined cops on the Reykjavík force with enough problems of their own are handed a challenge that looks enough to break them. Rado’s the child of refugees, always an outsider. Dóra’s still coping with the fallout from a brain injury in the line of duty. The dead man was the lover of their boss, Elliði. Now he’ll only trust the two outliers to investigate, just as a lethally potent brand of opiate floods the city. Dóra and Rado are up against the clock as they hunt through Reykjavík’s merciless underworld, while the drug claims more lives. Someone’s stalking them as they stumble through the investigation – someone who knows exactly how vulnerable Rado is, pulling strings and ratcheting up the pressure as his wife and son are snatched. Breakneck action speeds through the streets of Reykjavík, in one handbrake turn after another, while Rado and Dóra see the truth slipping from their fingers. Toxic is the hardest-boiled Nordic Noir there is, following on from Jón Atli Jónasson’s spectacular English-language debut Broken, which introduced outlier cops Rado and Dóra.