Forever Dystopian

In an effort to read more adult books (more on this in a later post) I have recently started an Adult Book Club at my work. The first pick being the above novel. I was immediately taken by the premise, as were many of my fellow book clubbers. What’s not to like: Iceland, death, murder, mystery just to name a few. Remind you of anything you’ve read before? As I began to read I was taken in by the scenery, it became a character in and of itself. A perfect backdrop to the dark premise that takes place throughout the novel and a perfect winter read. Agnes, our main character (as well as another character named Fridrick) is sentenced to death for the grisly murder of two men in the dead of night. Authorities look at it as a shut and close case of a woman scorned and a greedy thief taking his revenge. But what this story teaches us is that people are anything but cut and dry and thatthe circumstances surrounding these murders are as complicated as the lives of each character. I won’t got into the details of this story but suffice to say that Agnes as well as the lives of those she meets are forever changed when death's door comes knocking. While the story certainly lends itself to Larsson comparisons, I believe it only to be superficial. Yes, it is set in Iceland. The language, setting and character names certainly make this known to the reader, though not in a difficult way. Hannah Kent creates a story that is easily understandable and only uses names and language to indicate place and parentage. Yes, it involves a murder. But in this novel’s case it is only a backdrop for Agnes to tell her story and is not a “who done it” type of mystery since we are privy to the basic facts surrounding the murder and well as the people involved. As I was reading it though I felt it had more in common with the situations described in Truman Capote’s true crime class, [b:In Cold Blood|168642|In Cold Blood|Truman Capote|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1365125582s/168642.jpg|1940709]. In Capote’s work you are dealing with a psychology of two murderers. Why they did it, who they are and the town is as much of a character in this work as well. Both end in an execution. Both discuss the complexities surrounding the relationships of what is means to be truly evil. Highly Recommend.