While they may feature prominently in many Nordic Noir TV Series, and indeed a whole generation of memes were created around Sofie Gråbøl’s knitwear in The Killing, there are not many Nordic Noir books where Nordic knitting patterns prove pivotal.

In Satu Rämö’s first instalment of her Hildur series, The Clues In The Fjord, a top ten book of 2024 in Nordic Watchlist’s countdown, we were introduced to Jakob, the knitting-obsessed Finish police intern taking up post in remote Iceland under the wing of Detective Hildur Rúnarsdottir.

In book two, The Grave In The Ice (Rósa & Björk in the original Finnish), knitting also plays a pivotal role in unravelling a quarter-century-old mystery.

Having endured the murder of her boyfriend in book one, Hildur remains tormented not only by his death but the ongoing mystery of the disappearance of her sisters Rósa and Björk 26 years previously. Having vanished on their way home from school, Hildur’s determination to find out what happened to them remains undiminished.

There are more contemporary cases to solve though for the detective, the shooting of a high-profile and controversial local politician and the crash of a light aircraft may initially seem unconnected, but it soon becomes apparent that a shared hidden history between the two victims may have resulted in both deaths.

That hidden history is a recurrent theme in Rämö’s work, tension from years earlier simmering below the surface. Here it is not just a case of revenge being a dish best served cold, this is revenge on a whole frozen tundra level.

Multiple timelines and story arcs are at play here making for a complex read that requires full attention. It’s easy to lose the way if full attention isn’t paid. Flashbacks to events leading up to the disappearance of the sisters merge into the current with little clues being peppered to give the reader hints of the bigger picture.

With less exposition on character than the first instalment and the shifting timeframes of this plot line, characters seem more thinly drawn this time around. We gain a bit more context to Jakob and his bitter custody battle with his ex-wife but it seems somewhat of a sideline in this book compared with the first.

There’s also a sense that there’s more to discover from Hildur than is delivered in The Grave In The Ice. Clearly a complex woman with a fascinating back story and emotional scars hidden just beneath the surface, details are teased and then lost as the plot moves off on another tangent.

Despite those challenges, it remains an atmospheric and intriguing read, the truth about Hildur’s family’s past opens up plenty of scope for future instalments in the series and opportunities to delve deeper into the characters surrounding Hildur.

The original Finnish titles for the four books published so far in the series are named after individual characters, Hildur, Rósa & Björk, Jakob and Rakel and perhaps that’s a clue to this series, that attention shifts from book to book to a different protagonist.

Whatever the outcome, the cliffhanger at the end of book two makes the publication of book three into English, The Shadow Of The Northern Lights (Jakob in the original title), this autumn, an intriguing prospect.

The Grave In The Ice by Satu Rämö, translated by Kristian London, is published by Zaffre.