Fire and Ice (Ridpath)

Amid Iceland's wild, volcanic landscape, rumors swirl of an 800-year-old manuscript inscribed with a long-lost saga about a ring of terrible power. A rediscovered saga alone would be worth a fortune, but, if the rumors can be believed, there is something much more valuable about this one. Something worth killing for. Something that will cost Professor Agnar Haraldsson his life. Untangling murder from myth is Iceland-born, Boston-raised homicide detective Magnus Jonson. Seconded to the Icelandic Police Force for his own protection after he runs afoul of a drug cartel back in Boston, Magnus also has his own reasons for returning to the country of his birth for the first time in nearly two decades-the unsolved murder of his father. And as Magnus is about to discover, the past casts a long shadow in Iceland. Binding Iceland's landscape and history, secrets, and superstitions in a strikingly original plot that will span several volumes, Where the Shadows Lie is the first in a thrilling new series from an established master.

The third book in the Fire & Ice series featuring Icelandic detective Magnus Jonson FreeFlow, a group of internet activists committed to the freedom of information, have video evidence of a military atrocity in the Middle East and have chosen Iceland as their HQ while they prepare to unleash their greatest coup on the world's media. On the glacial rim of erupting volcano Eyjafjallajökull, minutes after they christen their endeavor Operation Meltwater, one of them is murdered. The list of people FreeFlow has antagonized is long-the Chinese government, Israeli military, a German Bank, Italian politicians, even U.S. college fraternities. Magnus Jonson has a long list of suspects but he's getting precious little help from FreeFlow-for an organization dedicated to the transparency of information, they're a secretive bunch. But they are not the only ones with secrets. Asta, a newly qualified priest, has contacted FreeFlow with information about a scandal in the church. Her involvement with FreeFlow will cost her dearly. And with the return of Magnus's brother Ollie to Iceland, the feud that has haunted their family for three generations is about to reignite.

Can Magnus prove he is innocent of murder without implicating his brother? And can both men get to the heart of the twisted secrets that blighted their childhoods? Oli and Magnus Jonson have spent years trying to escape from the shadows of their past. Raised by their grandparents in Bjarnarhöfn, a remote farmstead in Iceland, both brothers had to endure brutal violence at the hands of their grandfather. Now, two decades later, the past has returned to haunt them. When Constable Páll Gylfason gets a dispatch call to investigate a suspected homicide in a remote farmstead, he is surprised to find that Detective Jonson is already at the scene. Magnus identifies the dead man as his estranged grandfather. As Páll begins to review the crime scene it becomes apparent that forensic evidence has been tampered with and that Magnus' version of events doesn't add up. Before long, Magnus is arrested for the murder of his grandfather. When it emerges that his younger brother, Oli, is in Iceland after two decades in America, Páll begins to think that Magnus may not be the only family member in the frame for murder. What unfolds is a tale of familial ties and bloodthirsty vengeance, of isolated communities scarred by the tragedies of the past-and of a final, painful reckoning.