Icelandic Thrilles

The body of a young Russian woman washes up on an Icelandic shore. After a cursory investigation, the death is declared a suicide and the case is quietly closed. Over a year later Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir of the Reykjavík police is forced into early retirement at 64. She dreads the loneliness, and the memories of her dark past that threaten to come back to haunt her. But before she leaves she is given two weeks to solve a single cold case of her choice.

The only person who might have the answers to a baffling murder case is the victim's seven-year-old daughter, found hiding in the room where her mother died. And she's not talking. Newly-promoted, out of his depth, detective Huldar turns to Freyja for her expertise with traumatized young people. Freyja, who distrusts the police in general and Huldar in particular, isn't best pleased. But she's determined to keep little Margret safe. It may prove tricky. The killer is leaving them strange clues: warnings in text messages, sums scribbled on bits of paper, numbers on the radio.

It is a few years after Reykjavik Nights closed. Erlendur is now a detective working for the shadowy Marion Briem and is already divorced. It is 1979. A body of a man has been found in the blue lagoon, which has not yet become the tourist spot it is today. Apparently the victim fell from a great height, and at first the police investigate the possibility that he has been thrown out of an airplane.

When a young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed, elderly writer falls to his death in the local theater, Ari is dragged straight into the heart of a community where he can trust no one and secrets and lies are a way of life. Past plays tag with the present and the claustrophobic tension mounts as Ari is thrust ever deeper into his own darkness - blinded by snow and with a killer on the loose.

Autumn of 1987 takes a young couple on a romantic trip in the Westfjords holiday - a trip that gets an unexpected ending and has catastrophic consequences. Ten years later a small group of friends go for a weekend in an old hunting lodge in Elliðaey. A place completely cut off from the outside world, to reconnect. But one of them isn't going to make it out alive. And Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir is determined to find the truth in the darkness.

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she's taken her own life...until her body is found in the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected 15-year-old daughter, Hekla, has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

Una wants nothing more than to teach, but she has been unable to secure steady employment in Reykjavík. Her savings are depleted, her love life is nonexistent, and she cannot face another winter staring at the four walls of her shabby apartment. Celebrating Christmas and ringing in 1986 in the remote fishing hamlet of Skálar seems like a small price to pay for a chance to earn some teaching credentials and get her life back on track.

The Icelandic nation has a long and rich history of storytelling. Throughout centuries characterized by hardship, poverty, and dark winters, the Icelanders kept their spirits high and moral values intact by telling each other stories. In this collection of 15 Icelandic folk legends, we get a glimpse of the world view of the Icelanders in centuries past as they endeavored to understand and cope with the natural phenomena around them. There are stories of malicious ghosts, outlaws living in carved-out boulders, hidden people residing in grassy knolls...

On a long, cold Icelandic night in March 1920, Gunnar, a hermit blacksmith, finds himself with an unwanted lodger - Sigurd, an injured stranger who offers a story from the past. But some stories, even those of an old man who can barely walk, are too dangerous to hear. They alter the listeners' lives forever...by ending them. Others are keen on changing Gunnar's life as well. Depending on who gets to tell his story, it might lead toward an unwanted marriage, an intervention, rejoining the Church, letting the elf drive him insane, or succumbing to the demons in his mind.

The wealthy, powerful Snæberg clan has gathered for a family reunion at a futuristic hotel set amongst the dark lava flows of Iceland’s remote Snæfellsnes peninsula. Petra Snæberg, a successful interior designer, is anxious about the event, and her troubled teenage daughter, Lea, whose social-media presence has attracted the wrong kind of followers. As the weather deteriorates and the alcohol flows, one of the guests disappears, and it becomes clear that there is a prowler lurking in the dark. But is the real danger inside...within the family itself?

Icelandic sisters Áróra and Ísafold live in different countries and aren‘t on speaking terms, but when their mother loses contact with Ísafold, Áróra reluctantly returns to Iceland to find her sister. But she soon realises that her sister isn’t avoiding her...she has disappeared. As she confronts Ísafold’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend Björn, and begins to probe her sister’s reclusive neighbours, Áróra is led into an ever-darker web of intrigue and manipulation.

Detective H. Grímsson is intelligent, hard as nails, and very resourceful. But he's also his own worst enemy. After an unfortunate shooting incident in Iceland's largest shopping mall on Christmas Eve, he's demoted to a police deputy in a small rural village in eastern Iceland. Grímsson's plan is to kick back, drink some beer, and enjoy this time away from home. When two young female hitchhikers disappear, Grímsson fears that the girls are lost in the highlands or have drowned in the glacial river. But then one of the girls wanders naked into the village and dies in Grimsson's arms.

On a snowy winter morning, an abandoned shipping container is discovered near Reykjavík. Inside are the bodies of five young women - one of them barely alive. As Icelandic Police detective Daníel struggles to investigate the most brutal crime of his career, Áróra looks into the background of a suspicious man, who turns out to be engaged to Daníel's former wife, and the connections don't stop there.

A chilling note predicting the deaths of six people is found in a school's time capsule, 10 years after it was buried. But surely, if a 13-year-old wrote it, it can't be a real threat.... Detective Huldar suspects he's been given the investigation simply to keep him away from real police work. He turns to psychologist Freyja to help understand the child who hid the message. Soon, however, they find themselves at the heart of another shocking case.

Vaka sits on the cold steps of her new school. Her father appears to have forgotten to pick her up, her mother has forgotten to give her this week’s pocket money, and the school is already locked for the day. With no way to call home, she resigns herself to waiting on the steps until her father remembers her. When a girl approaches, Vaka recognizes her immediately from class and from her unusual appearance: two of her fingers are missing. The girl lives at the back of the school, and Vaka asks to call her father from the girl's house. That afternoon is the last time anyone sees Vaka.

When a deadly snowstorm strikes the Icelandic highlands, four friends seek shelter in a small, abandoned hunting lodge. It is in the middle of nowhere and there's no way of communicating with the outside world. They are isolated, but they are not alone. As the night darkens, and fears intensify, an old tragedy gradually surfaces—one that forever changed the course of their friendship. Those dark memories could hold the key to the mystery the friends now find themselves in. And whether they will survive until morning . . .

The first the police know of the crime is when clips are sent from the victim's Snapchat account, showing her begging for forgiveness. The CCTV at the cinema where she was working show her being dragged into the night by a masked killer. When the body is found, it is marked with a number 2...Detective Huldar joins the murder investigation, bringing child psychologist Freyja on board to help question the murdered teenager's friends. Soon, they uncover that Stella was far from the angel people claim: a relentless bully, she made life miserable for those around her.

On a jagged, bleak lava field just outside Reykjavik stands the Gallows Rock. Once a place of execution, it is now a tourist attraction. Until this morning, when a man was found hanging from it. The nail embedded in his chest proves it wasn't suicide. But when the police go to his flat, a further puzzle awaits: a four-year-old boy has been left there. He doesn't seem to have any link with the victim, his parents cannot be found and his drawings show he witnessed something terrible.

William Wisting is in a race against time. When a severed head is found on a stake in the quiet town of Larvik, Police Inspector William Wisting is called in to investigate. The killer is trying to send a message. All roads lead back to the Night Man. As the media closes in on the biggest story of the year, Wisting's journalist daughter Line receives a tip. Soon, it becomes clear that there is more to this case than anyone thought. A criminal network has lodged itself deep into the roots of the city, and it's up to Wisting to take down the elusive and dangerous Night Man.

It was meant to be a quiet family fishing trip, a chance for mother and daughter to talk. But it changes the course of their lives forever. They catch nothing except a broken doll that gets tangled in the net. After years in the ocean, the doll a terrifying sight and the mother's first instinct is to throw it back, but she relents when her daughter pleads to keep it. This simple act of kindness proves fatal. That evening, the mother posts a picture of the doll on social media. By the morning, she is dead and the doll has disappeared.