Some secrets don’t stay buried. They carve their way back to the surface.
Months after the case that nearly broke her, thirty-nine-year-old Detective Rúna is easing back into active duty, pregnant with her first child and hoping for something quieter. What she gets instead is Árni Sigríðarson, a young financial consultant found hanged in his apartment. It looks like suicide. It isn’t.
A cricoid fracture tells Rúna and Hanna that someone choked Árni before staging the scene, and the deeper they dig, the murkier his life becomes: a double existence built on money, image, and leverage over men who could never afford to be exposed.
But the case isn’t the only thing haunting Rúna. Night after night, she dreams of a soaking-wet stranger standing over her child’s cradle, holding a hand-carved wooden duck missing one leg. At a family reunion, an old photograph stops her cold, the man in her dreams has a face, and a name, and a place in her own family tree. Her grand-uncle Halldór, a carpenter who drowned in the harbor in 1958, is trying to tell her something. And the story of what really happened to him in 1957 has been waiting sixty-five years for someone to listen.
As the present-day investigation tightens around Árni’s killer, Rúna finds herself pulled between two cases separated by decades, one that demands justice, and one that demands she finally reckon with what her own family chose to forget.
Carved is an atmospheric psychological thriller about inherited trauma and the debts that outlive the people who created them; a haunting, unflinching novel about how the past never stays where we leave it.
“An intriguing and thrilling account of horrifying events taking place in the middle of the last century that echo into the present day. The author masterfully brings out the psychological anguish of the outcast and skillfully connects contemporary events with the dark atrocities of the past. An impactful and ingeniously structured story that keeps the reader captivated until the very end.”
NOMINATION FOR THE ICELANDIC CRIME AWARD 2024 (on Carved)
“The story flows smoothly, touching upon important issues, drawing attention to specific problems past and present, and demonstrating that a life of crime is not restricted to any single social status.”
STEINTHOR GUDBJARTSSON, MORGUNBLADID DAILY (on Carved)
★★★★★ “One word: Wow! I couldn’t stop listening; I finished it in two sittings. I highly recommend this book. Now I’ve listened to/read all of Steindór’s books and have been thrilled with every single one. Looking forward to the next.”
STORYTEL (on Carved)
★★★★★ “An exciting and well-written crime thriller with good characterization and fast pacing. Written in exceptionally beautiful Icelandic, which makes a good book even better.”
STORYTEL (on Carved)
★★★★★ “This is one of the best books I have ever read. I highly recommend it. A fantastic crime novel with an outstanding plot and believable characters. Very well written in beautiful Icelandic.”
GOODREADS (on Carved)
★★★★★ “This is one of the best books I have ever read. Highly recommend it.”
GOODREADS (on Carved)
