The Undesired, by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - book review

The author fails to convince the reader in this unlikely Icelandic tale

As fiction genres go, crime and horror are often comfortable bedfellows and there’s always been a large crossover subset between them. It’s territory that Yrsa Sigurdardóttir knows well: apart from her series of accomplished legal procedurals set in her native Iceland, Sigurdardóttir has also dabbled in straight horror with the ghost story I Remember You, and this second stand-alone book seems initially to be following that novel’s path.

In the present day, single-father Ódinn is investigating possibile child abuse at a home for young offenders in the 1970s. It’s part of a systematic review of the care system, so he’s not expecting terrible revelations, but the tragic deaths of two boys are slowly revealed to be more suspicious than anyone first thought. Added to the mix is the fact that Ódinn’s personal life is a shambles. He has recently taken parental care of his 11-year-old daughter, Rún, after her mother died in a fall from an open window, and both he and his daughter seem quite literally to be haunted by that trauma.

Back in the 1970s, events are narrated by Aldís, a young woman working at the junior detention centre who has her own ghosts and demons. The couple who run the home are nasty and duplicitous and Aldís is almost treated like a slave. But she falls for Einar, an older boy recently arrived at the home, and that leads them all towards a tragic and macabre conclusion.

To begin with, Sigurdardóttir does a fair job of combining horror and crime procedural elements of her plot. The juxtaposition of Ódinn’s apparently mundane office job with the odd spooky things happening within his family is well paced, but as the narrative progresses, the author seems to give up on the idea of ghostly happenings, and the book becomes a much more predictable crime tale.

And, it has to be said, it is a bit boring. Nothing much happens for the first 200 pages in either the present or historical narrative threads, and Ódinn is hardly a captivating protagonist. Aldís is more interesting, but the author fails to convince the reader about why she would opt to stay and put up with the treatment she receives at the detention centre.

The pace gets going in the final act of The Undesired, but unfortunately it relies on some punishingly unlikely coincidences, as the events at the care home are tenuously linked to Ódinn’s family situation. Patchy in tone and unconvincing throughout, this is far from Sigurdardóttir’s finest work.

Hodder & Stoughton £14.99