Gunnhildur Mystery
9 total works
'Superior crime fiction set in Iceland' The Times
'As chilling as an Icelandic winter' S. J. Bolton
Hidden away in a secure house outside Reykjavík, Detective Gunna and a high-profile stranger, a guest of the interiors minister, are thrown together - too close for comfort.
They soon find they are neither as safe nor as carefully hidden as Gunna and her boss had thought. Conflicting glimpses of the man's past start to emerge as the press begin to sniff him out, as does another group with their own reasons for locating him.
Gunna struggles to come to terms with protecting the life of a man who may have the lives of many on his conscience - or indeed may be the philanthropist he claims to be.
Isolated together, the friction grows between Gunna and the foreign visitor, and she realises they are out of their depth as the trails lead from the house outside Reykjavík to Brussels, Russia and the Middle East.
The sixth dark and atmospheric thriller in Quentin Bates's Icelandic crime series. A chilling page-turner perfect for fans of Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and Søren Sveistrup's The Chestnut Man.
Praise for Quentin Bates:
'A great read - leaves you craving the next installment' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
'A perfect book to curl up with in front of the fire' The Bookbag
'Well written and absorbing' Woman's Way
'Captures the chilly spirit of Nordic crime fiction . . . Fans of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavík mysteries will want to add Bates to their reading lists' Booklist
'[A] crackling fiction debut ... palpable authenticity' Publishers Weekly
'A superb new series' Eurocrime
Snowed in with a couple of psychopaths for the winter...
When two small-time crooks rob Reykjavik's premier drugs dealer, hoping for a quick escape to the sun, their plans start to unravel after their getaway driver fails to show. Tensions mount between the pair and the two women they have grabbed as hostages when they find themselves holed upcountry in an isolated hotel that has been mothballed for the season.
Back in the capital, Gunnhildur, Eirikur and Helgi find themselves at a dead end investigating what appear to be the unrelated disappearance of a mother, her daughter and their car during a day's shopping, and the death of a thief in a house fire.
Gunna and her team are faced with a set of riddles but as more people are quizzed it begins to emerge that all these unrelated incidents are in fact linked. And at the same time, two increasingly desperate lowlifes have no choice but to make some big decisions on how to get rid of their accidental hostages...
'As chilling as an Icelandic winter' S. J. Bolton
'Superior crime fiction set in Iceland' The Times
The discovery of a corpse washed up on a beach in an Icelandic backwater sparks a series of events that propels the village of Hvalvik's police sergeant Gunnhildur into deep waters.
Although under pressure to deal with the matter quickly, she is suspicious that the man's death was no accident and once she has identified the body, sets about investigating his final hours.
The case takes Gunnhildur away from her village and into a cosmopolitan world of shady deals, government corruption and violence. She finds herself alone and less than welcome in this hostile environment as she tries to find out who it was that made sure the young man drowned on a dark night one hundred kilometres from where he should have been - and why.
The first chilling and atmospheric thriller in Quentin Bates's Icelandic crime series. A dark page-turner perfect for fans of Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and Søren Sveistrup's The Chestnut Man.
Praise for Quentin Bates:
'A great read - leaves you craving the next installment' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
'A perfect book to curl up with in front of the fire' The Bookbag
'Well written and absorbing' Woman's Way
'Captures the chilly spirit of Nordic crime fiction . . . Fans of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavík mysteries will want to add Bates to their reading lists' Booklist
'[A] crackling fiction debut ... palpable authenticity' Publishers Weekly
'A superb new series' Eurocrime
'Superior crime fiction set in Iceland' The Times
'As chilling as an Icelandic winter' S. J. Bolton
Reykjavík detective Gunnhildur Gísladóttir tries not to believe in ghosts. But when Helgi, one of her team is certain he's seen a man who had been declared dead more than fifteen years ago, she reluctantly gives him some unofficial leeway to look into it.
Has the not-so-dead man returned from the grave to settle old scores, or has he just decided to take a last look around his old haunts?
Either way, there are people who have nursed grudges for years, hoping for a reckoning one day. Even the rumour of his being alive and kicking is enough to spark a storm of fury and revenge, with Gunnhildur and Helgi caught up in the middle of it.
The seventh dark and atmospheric thriller in Quentin Bates's Icelandic crime series. A tense page-turner perfect for fans of Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and Søren Sveistrup's The Chestnut Man.
Praise for Quentin Bates:
'A great read - leaves you craving the next installment' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
'A perfect book to curl up with in front of the fire' The Bookbag
'Well written and absorbing' Woman's Way
'Captures the chilly spirit of Nordic crime fiction . . . Fans of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavík mysteries will want to add Bates to their reading lists' Booklist
'[A] crackling fiction debut ... palpable authenticity' Publishers Weekly
'A superb new series' Eurocrime
'As chilling as an Icelandic winter' S. J. Bolton
'Superior crime fiction set in Iceland' The Times
A successful housebreaker who leaves no traces and no clues as he strips Reykjavík homes of their valuables has been a thorn in the police's side for months.
But when one night the thief breaks into the wrong house, he finds himself caught in a trap as the stakes are raised far beyond anything he could have imagined.
Gunnhildur Gísladóttir of the Reykjavík police finds herself frustrated at every turn as she searches for a victim who has vanished from the scene of the crime, and wonders if it could be linked to the murders of two businessmen with dubious reputations that her bosses are warning her to keep clear of.
The fourth dark and atmospheric thriller in Quentin Bates's Icelandic crime series. A chilling page-turner perfect for fans of Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and Søren Sveistrup's The Chestnut Man.
Praise for Quentin Bates:
'A great read - leaves you craving the next installment' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
'A perfect book to curl up with in front of the fire' The Bookbag
'Well written and absorbing' Woman's Way
'Captures the chilly spirit of Nordic crime fiction . . . Fans of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavík mysteries will want to add Bates to their reading lists' Booklist
'[A] crackling fiction debut ... palpable authenticity' Publishers Weekly
'A superb new series' Eurocrime
Following her promotion and working now from Reykjavik, Gunnhildur is given responsibility for two cases - the first in tracking down an escaped convict who's keen to settle old scores, and the other, the murder of a TV fitness presenter in her city centre apartment.
With the police short staffed and underfunded following the financial crash, Gunnhildur and her team set about delving into the backgrounds of both, where they uncover some unwelcome secrets and some influential friends of both who have no wish to be in the public eye.
Set in an Iceland that is coming to terms with the deepening recession, Gunnhildur has to take stock of the whirlwind changes that have taken place as she investigates criminals at opposite ends of the social scale as some uncomfortable links appear between the two cases.
Praise for Frozen Out:
A meticulously constructed thriller, peopled with exceptionally convincing characters and shot through with black humour. Frozen Out is as chilling as an Icelandic winter. S.J. Bolton
"[A] crackling fiction debut ... palpable authenticity." Publishers Weekly
British author Bates captures the chilly spirit of Nordic crime fiction in what is the apparent start of a promising series with a distinctly appealing protagonist. Fans of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavik mysteries will want to add Bates to their reading lists. Booklist
Gunna is an admirable protagonist: sensible, intelligent and determined....I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and can recommend it very highly as a flying start to what seems to be shaping up to be a superb new series. Eurocrime.
Well written and absorbing. Women's Voice
...compelling fast paced stuff that never falters. Hackwriters.com
...his blistering debut reads more like an American procedural than the British product, right down to a denouement as acridly unsatisfying as today's headlines. Kirkus Reviews
A novella featuring Detective Gunnhildur of Quentin Bates's Icelandic crime series. A dark and chilling thriller perfect for fans of Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and Søren Sveistrup's The Chestnut Man.
It's a bitter winter morning when Sergeant Gunnhildur is called to the scene of a violent killing in an abandoned industrial unit.
Gunna and her sidekick Helgi quickly find that the battered victim had no shortage of enemies.
The case takes Gunna around Reykjavík's darker side and Helgi to the bleak rural district he grew up in as they work out who was prepared to take a grudge as far as murder.
Praise for Quentin Bates:
'As chilling as an Icelandic winter' S. J. Bolton
'Superior crime fiction set in Iceland' The Times
'A great read - leaves you craving the next installment' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
'A perfect book to curl up with in front of the fire' The Bookbag
'Well written and absorbing' Woman's Way
'Captures the chilly spirit of Nordic crime fiction . . . Fans of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavík mysteries will want to add Bates to their reading lists' Booklist
'[A] crackling fiction debut ... palpable authenticity' Publishers Weekly
'A superb new series' Eurocrime
A novella featuring Detective Gunnhildur of Quentin Bates's Icelandic crime series. An atmospheric and chilling thriller perfect for fans of Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell and Søren Sveistrup's The Chestnut Man.
It's the tail end of a hot summer when half of Reykjavík is on holiday and the other half wishes it was. Things are quiet when a man is reported missing from his home in the suburbs.
As Gunna and Helgi investigate, it becomes clear that the missing man had secrets of his own that lead to a sinister set of friends, and to someone with little to lose who is a fugitive from both justice and the underworld.
It becomes a challenge for Gunna to tail both the victim and his would-be executioner, racing to catch up with at least one of them before they finally meet.
Praise for Quentin Bates:
'As chilling as an Icelandic winter' S. J. Bolton
'Superior crime fiction set in Iceland' The Times
'A great read - leaves you craving the next installment' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
'A perfect book to curl up with in front of the fire' The Bookbag
'Well written and absorbing' Woman's Way
'Captures the chilly spirit of Nordic crime fiction . . . Fans of Arnaldur Indridason's Reykjavík mysteries will want to add Bates to their reading lists' Booklist
'[A] crackling fiction debut ... palpable authenticity' Publishers Weekly
'A superb new series' Eurocrime