I wasn't expecting to enjoy The Lost House by Melissa Larsen as much as I did. I chose to read it because it took place in Iceland, in itself a mysterious locale, and was an unusual mystery.
A youngish woman, Agnes, goes to Iceland to learn more about her family and help in a podcast highlighting an unsolved murder of Agnes' grandmother and 9 month old aunt found frozen in the snow nearly 50 years earlier. Agnes has not healed from a serious accident that broke bones and is painful. She arrives addicted to painkillers.
She is the guest of the podcaster, Nora, at a beautiful home near the grounds where the two victims were found.

I found the narration very authentic. Agnes's reticent character, her dependence on drugs, her stubbornness, her dance of loneliness. The flashbacks of her father and grandfather are well placed and believable. For a mystery that has been unsolved for almost 50 years, it moved quickly but is explained by the fact that everyone in the village had determined the husband to be guilty so no further investigation happened until Nora and Agnes arrive on the scene. With two determined women wanting to know the truth plus another disappearance of a young woman just as Agnes arrives that seems to be related, it might move quickly.

Ms. Larsen is a good writer, she kept the suspense taunt and the reader guessing. The ending was satisfying.
I recommend this book as good Icelandic noir!!

3.5 starts, rounded up to 4
Publication date January 14, 2025


Thank you NetGalley and St Martins Press for sending this eARC for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

Agnes travels to Iceland to interview with a podcaster about her family's past. Forty years ago her grandmother and baby aunt were found frozen together, her grandmother with her throat slashed and her baby drowned. Although most thought the blame lied with Agnes' grandfather, he was never arrested, and fled to California with his son. Agnes loved her grandfather and believed in his innocence, but the more she learns from people who knew her grandparents, the more her belief in him wanes.

This book had an interesting cast of characters and beautiful scenery. Not the most gripping thriller, but enough to have you guessing throughout.

The Lost House was a slow paced mystery/thriller. The characters throughout the story, I felt, were not well developed. I liked the mission of the MC, but I felt like there was just something critical lacking that I can't quite put my finger on. I just couldn't get interested and the ending was too predictable.

If you are on the lookout for a chilling winter themed thriller in a scenic location this is definitely a good choice for you!

Set in Iceland, “The Lost House” follows Agnes, a 20 something year old from California who has agreed to work with a true crime podcaster Nora in regards to an unsolved 40 year old murder case.

Nora wants to interview Agnes as she is the granddaughter of the main suspect, the whole town is in agreement that her grandfather killed his wife and child and then fled to the states surely after.

After his recent passing Agnes is hoping to reconnect with her grandfather by visiting the home of her ancestors and clearing his name once and for all.

I enjoyed the setting of this book, I felt cold the entire time I was reading based on the harsh winter weather highlighted throughout the entire book. I imagine trying to solve crime and escaping murderers during the harsh winter snow would make things extra difficult for those involved.

I enjoyed the interview scenes where Agnes and Nora would ask locals questions about the history of the town and the events leading up to the murders. I also enjoyed the present day missing persons case that ran adjacent to the unsolved murder as we try to untangle whether there is a connection between the two cases or pure coincidence.

There was definitely some character growth for Agnes, she seemed a little lost when she first arrived in Iceland and it was nice to see her find some footing by the end. I am not sure how I feel about Nora. Although I think she has good intentions and tries to be respectful and ethical while conducting her investigations, it also seems like she doesn’t really care about the people she interviews and isn’t too concerned about the distress and upset her actions and questions will cause them, particularly the older folk. There was something a little off about her character that I can’t put my finger on.

Thank you to St martins press and Minotaur books; and Melissa Larsen for the EARC!

Publish date: January 14th 2025

This is easily one of the best thrillers I've read in the last few years. The author does a magnificent job telling Agnes' story as she learns the history of her family and what really happened to her grandmother and aunt all those years ago. The setting gave me chills (both spooky and physical) as we unpacked the story. The best part, I did not see this twist coming!

Agnes returns to where her dad group up to hopefully find out more about murders that happened in the past. Once arriving she learns of a missing girl around the 40th anniversary of the murders she is trying to learn more about. Could they possibly be connected?
This was a great thriller that kept me puzzled until the end!! Thank you NetGalley for the arc!

Thanks to Netgalley & St. Martin's Press for the
E-ARC! This was ok. Thought it was a little perdictable. Creepy vibes though were immaculate. I would give this author another try.

The lost house by Melissa Larsen

This story took place in Iceland, a woman and a baby were found dead in the cold bitter landscape of Iceland, the mothers throat was slashed and the baby was drowned in her arms. Both were buried beneath the snow and of course her husband is blamed.

With past and present POV the grand daughter is trying to find the truth and proved her grandfathers innocent in this horrible tragedy when more red flags keep rising to challenge the truth.

This book was slow for me and I had a feeling which proved to be right about the ending. There is a lot of words for the little that happens in the book, the main character has a lot of internal dialog going on which was a yawn for me.

Thank you NetGalley and St Martins press.

Nice Icelandic noir tale.
Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the advance reader copy!
The story is that of Agnes Glin whose family left Iceland with the previous generation. Her grandfather was suspected of murdering his wife and infant daughter and left in disgrace. Agnes goes back after her grandfather’s death at the behest of true crime podcaster Nora Carver who is investigating the story. She hopes to clear her grandfather’s name and legacy. In addition another Oman goes missing as Agnes arrives just as her grandmother did many years before.
The book had a great sense of place as Agnes got to know Iceland and Icelanders and their ways. This felt quite authentic.
The plot was interesting with many twists and turns. The characters were quirky and a little eerie. This was the strong part of the book.
The premise of Agnes old injury and subsequent addiction bothered me and distracted me from the main action of the story. I did not quite understand the accident itself in the end. This and the fact that in the end Nora just sort of fell out of the story kept this at 3.5-4 stars for me. I was never sure what Nora’s agenda was or even who she was as a person.
Overall I did enjoy the book and would recommend it to mystery readers especially those who enjoy Scandinavian literature.

A great Sunday whodunit murder mystery with a main character who needs help on many levels. Going back to Ireland to participate in a podcast about her grandfather, by doing so, she will discover more about the truth of her grandmother's death, about herself, and even some love interests. When she arrives in Iceland, a young woman disappears, and she ends up helping with that mystery as well. It made a great, relaxing mystery read.

Agnes has grown up knowing that her family is Icelandic—and knowing that her father and grandfather left after a terrible tragedy for which her grandfather was blamed. They've never been willing to talk about it, never been back. But now an investigative podcast has pulled Agnes to Iceland to learn more—the podcast, and Agnes's own, smaller-scale tragedy, which she is fighting to recover from.

In an Icelandic winter, nothing is what she knows and nothing is quite what she expects: the cold permeates everything and everywhere; some of the locals view her as a reincarnation of her murdered grandmother, while others view her as a the granddaughter of a murderer (and thus suspicious herself); her father's childhood home is in falling-down shambles; she herself can't quite decide what to believe about her grandfather...and a local girl has gone missing, and the race is on to find her.

I read this for the setting, mostly: give me murder mysteries in far-off places I'd love to visit, and give me female writers and female main characters and a combination of a cold (in every sense of the word) case and a current case, and yes please. (I don't want to die in the woods in sparsely populated lands. I don't want almost anyone to die in the woods in sparsely populated lands! ...but I'd like a lot of fiction about just that, thanks.) And I'm here for just how much of a role *cold* plays here. I don't always love Agnes: she is deeply, deeply self-centered at times, pushing her own trauma on people who have other reasons to be traumatized and are not necessarily in a place to hear and empathize with a stranger's story. I'd also have loved to see a bit more explanation of the way people treat her in Iceland—some see her as something of a reincarnation of her grandmother, while others associate her only with her grandfather, and how they view her makes a pretty wild difference in how they treat and speak to her. The coincidence of a young woman going missing around the time that Agnes arrives feels a little played up; there's really no reason for anyone to think that there's any connection to Agnes, so though of course it complicates her time there, the connections feel a bit contrived.

Still, a nice wintery read. One to read from the comfort of one's heated home in the dead of the dark and the dark of the winter night...

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.

I loved that this book took place in Iceland, which really added to the mystery and suspense. This book is about a woman who goes back to her roots, in a community that believes her grandfather killed his wife and on of their children. Agnes, the granddaughter, believes that is more to the story and comes to Iceland to solve it. At the same time she arrives, a woman goes missing and Agnes, trying to fight her addiction to opioids, is working to solve both her grandfather’s mystery plus the mystery of the missing girl. Full of suspense, partly due to Agnes’ addiction and her physical disability, this book will keep you flipping the pages.
Thank you NetGalley for a ARC.

The Lost House is the story of Agnes and her return to her families homeland of Iceland. Agnes grew up in the states with her father and grandfather. She knows the story that her family left Iceland due to her grandfather being accused of murdering his wife and their daughter. Agnes grandfather may not have been charged but was run out of Iceland. Agnes is now a grown women who had a recent accident and has also lost her grandfather. A woman named Nora is doing a podcast on the murders Agnes grandfather has been accused of committing. Agnes decides to meet Nora in Iceland and learn more about the story that has haunted her family for centuries.

A family is haunted by a grizzly past. Forty years ago a young mother and her infant were found frozen in Iceland. The baby had been drowned and the mother's throat slashed. Now all these years later, their family is suffering. The husband of the deceased was ran out of town on suspicion of murder, left to raise his 9 year old son in the US. The son lived under the shadow of suspicion all his life. His daughter, Agnes, can take it no more. When a popular podcast wants to explore the details of the case, Agnes packs her bag and heads to Iceland to offer background on her family. What ensues will be a family tragedy in the making. Agnes wants to do the right thing and understand her grandfather's decisions, but when another young female goes missing her quest for redemption grows. Through a cast of characters deeply embedded in the case, the truth may finally be revealed.

This story is dark, it only discusses the two murders but it is pretty dark. The landscape of Iceland is a perfect backdrop to the suffering brought on by the murders. This is a slow burn. Agnes is a troubled character who has to redeem herself, along the way you don't know to love or hate her. The last twenty pages is probably the quickest. Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC. This book was a little predictable of who the killer was. It started as a podcast and then in the middle and towards the end, it was forgotten. I am not sure if the podcast ever got “published” to share Agnes’ grandfather’s story. I still recommend this book if you want to get into international thrillers.

The premise for this one absolutely hooked me and I wanted to read it. For me it fell flat and didn't hold my attention like I thought it would. The beginning starts off strong and then unfortunately the middle is so slow that it took everything in me to push through. The ending also felt very rushed and it left me underwhelmed.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars.

Overall, The Lost House is an enjoyable mystery thriller with a few flaws/plot holes if you think too much about it. The strength of the book is the Iceland setting; Larsen’s writing is effectively immersive in creating the cold, dark atmosphere in the dead of an Icelandic winter, when most of the story takes place. I also loved how we had Agnes’s outsider view on the local culture and language pronunciations. (I thought that the device of Agnes frequently mispronouncing names and being corrected by locals was very effective and also taught me how to correctly pronounce things.) The conclusion of the mystery was logical and satisfying, given the premise. I feel like a lot of “thrillers” these days try to be edgy for the sake of edginess, and this wasn’t that. Larsen appropriately placed foreshadowing/breadcrumbs without it being super obvious who the killer was but not having it come out of left field. Most important, as a thriller should, it kept me turning pages and staying up later than I should.

My complaints are that I felt Nora was both kind of an annoying and pointless character. She’s in the book so much that I figured there’d be a payoff…but there isn’t really one. She also comes into a piece of “evidence” at one point that she stashes in a drawer instead of handing over to police, and the reasoning for this is never really explained. There’s also a “secret” relationship where there’s a pivotal plot point involving a burner phone…but given that both parties in the relationship are single, and there’s no particular reason to “hide” the relationship, I couldn’t figure out why the one party needed a burner phone. So yes, these are small nitpicks, but it overall gave the feeling that the book could have used some more time with an editor to smooth over some rough edged plot points, etc.

All that said, I’d still definitely read another book by Larsen, particularly if the setting/premise is interesting.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s for the ARC!

Agnes is in a bad place when she steps off of the plane Iceland. Not only is her leg, which she injured quite catastrophically a year earlier, causing her agony, but her reason for coming to the artic country is weighing heavily on her: she is coming to the land of her ancestors to dig into the brutal crime that killed her grandmother and infant aunt. Agnes has never talked publicly about the murders of her family and the now infamous crime haunts the small Icelandic town where it happened. What’s worse is the townspeople are convinced that her grandfather is responsible for the murders, a notion that Agnes can’t square with the loving man that was like a second father. She has finally decided to break her silence, agreeing to be interviewed by famous podcaster Nora Carter on the 40th anniversary of the murders.

Nora’s focus is fractured because another young woman is missing, could the disappearance have something to do with the crime that happened so many years ago? And will Agnes finally get some answers about the mystery that has haunted her family all her life?

I really enjoyed this book. It was creepy and the Icelandic setting added an extra element of cold, dark suspense. The mystery kept me guessing and I didn’t figure out the ending no matter how many guesses I made. Four stars. Curl up under the covers and enjoy this icy, dark thriller.

I received this advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and feedback.

Summary: Agnes Glin has left her home in California and travelled to Iceland – to be interviewed by true crime podcaster Nora Carver and see what is left of her grandfather’s homestead in the town of Bifrost. Years before, Agnes’ grandmother and infant daughter were brutally murdered and left in the snow in Bifrost. No one was ever charged with the murders. The townspeople all believed that her grandfather Einar was the killer, and when he left town with his son for the US they took that as proof of his guilt. After Agnes arrives, a local girl named Asa goes missing and suddenly all the old feelings surrounding the old murders is stirred up again. Agnes can’t help herself from investigating Asa’s disappearance while she is digging into the murders of her family…and she may be endangering herself as well.

Thoughts: This novel has a unique setting and a very Scandinavian feel with concise and direct dialogue. Agnes is a likeable protagonist – a woman who keeps her emotions carefully controlled and a tight lid on her secrets even while she is trying to pry secrets out of others. The author conveys the isolation of Bifrost and the ease with which dark deeds can be concealed in the icy remoteness. The novel is divided into three parts. I struggled to continue with parts one and two, which dragged and tended to dwell repetitively on Agnes’ knee injury. However, part three revealed all the secrets at a steady clip and renewed my interest. I can’t say that the resolution was a big surprise, but all the loose ends were tied up very cleanly with a satisfying conclusion. Unfortunately, I fear that many readers will give up on the novel before reaching part three.

This wasn't for me. Several of my friends really enjoyed this but I just couldn't connect. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book