“Police in the capital area are seeking information on the whereabouts of Klara Osk Vidarsdottir Smith, age 15. She is 5’4”, weighs 123 lbs,and has blue eyes and long, blond hair.” 

Such notices have appeared in The Afternoon News more often than its journalists can count. So many teenagers disappear or run away of their own volition. Sometimes, the same child will disappear over and over again, prompting an overflow of callous rebukes on social media sites, recriminations directed at everything and everyone. Why can’t anyone get this generation under control?

The photo of the missing girl strikes a chord with Einar, one of staff journalists. Something in her expression reminds him of his own daughter, Gunnsa, when she was a few years younger and still innocent. But now Gunnsa is a journalist herself, working alongside her father at the paper and bent on investigating the story of all these missing kids. She gets in touch with Klara Osk on Facebook, and the two make arrangements to meet. But no one shows up except Death himself.

Arni Thorarinsson has written an edge-of-your-seat thriller set in modern-day Iceland, portraying with style and sensitivity the world of corruption and degradation that lurks just beneath the
surface of our society, a world populated only by predators and their prey. And sinking into these depths, there’s no doubt of where Klara Osk and her companions fit in the food chain.