Cold as Hell

Arora and Isafold are the daughters of an Icelandic father and an English mother. Arora chooses to live in England and prefers the English way of life whereas Isafold feels more at home in Iceland and eventually moves in with her Icelandic boyfriend, Bjorn. Arora lives a happy life in England as a single woman with an unusual job as a financial super sleuth. She tracks down unsavoury characters with hidden money and ill-gotten gains, reporting her findings to the likes of HMRC and swindled ex-spouses and then takes a cut of the loot. So far so good... but when Arora's mother rings to say that Isafold has gone missing and begs her younger daughter to investigate, Aurora reluctantly finds herself on the first plane out to Reykjavik. Her first port of call is boyfriend Bjorn, a drug dealer who has regularly beaten Isafold in the past, but he seems as bewildered and upset as anybody by his girlfriend's disappearance.  

There are several very weird characters in the block of flats where Bjorn and Isafold live, who could have something to do with what increasingly looks like a murder. We read about their back stories and follow Arora's progress as she hooks up with her strangely attractive detective uncle (who turns out to be an uncle only by marriage and therefore available for future romantic adventures!). At the same time, she is carrying on with a fellow guest in her Reykjavik hotel whilst investigating his dubious financial affairs. As you can see, Arora is quite an intrepid woman.... We also have the italicized pages of Arora's innermost thoughts, although these add nothing to the narrative and I suspect are just there to follow the current trend.

This is a strange book and the first of five Arora Investigates novels. There are many loose ends left to be tied up and I presume they will be developed in the following books. Characters are introduced who don't go anywhere and others are dangled in front of us just to be left hanging. The construction of the book is quite odd too. There are over a 100 chapters of usually only one or two pages which, for me, makes for a disjointed read. I can see the attraction of continuing with the Arora series to give a fairer assessment but I didn't feel sufficiently engaged with the story to do that.

I found it interesting to see the Icelandic character, Icelandic idiosyncrasies and the Icelandic way of life through the eyes of Arora, who is half and in and half out of the community. There are constant references to how cold the Icelandic summer is, so much so that I looked up the average temperatures and yes, they arecold! And even though Arora sees herself primarily as an English woman with English sensibilities, at the end of the story she decides to stay in Iceland for the time being. And presumably this is where her future adventures will take place.

Cold as Hell features an interesting and unusual central character in a rather unsatisfactory story. Maybe the series will develop for those prepared to stick around.