Nordic Watchlist reviews The Shadow of The Northern Lights by Satu Rämö. Book 3 of Hildur series sees the Detective Hildur investigate murders tied to Iceland’s Yule Lads legend.
As Christmas approaches, Icelandic children will begin to await the visit of one of the 13 Yule Lads, mischievous pranksters who deliver presents to good children or potatoes to bad children in the 13-day run-up to Christmas. In Satu Rämö’s The Shadow of The Northern Lights, however, the legend of the Yule Lads is driving something much more sinister.
The original titles of the books have been the names of the main protagonists yet bizarrely are retitled in English with little relevance to the plot. Hildur became The Clues in The Ford, Rósa & Björk shifts to The Grave in The Ice and this, the latest instalment of the story of Detective Hildur Rúnarsdóttir and her Finnish trainee Jakob Johanson, had the original title Jakob.
That methodology made sense, shifting the view to the main storyline of each novel, and indeed, here in part three, we learn more about the jumper-knitting trainee detective Jakob. Readers of the previous two works already know that Jakob has a complex past: an abusive ex-wife and an ongoing cross-border custody battle for their young son.
It is the resolution of that custody battle that provides one of the main dramatic thrusts of The Shadow of The Northern Lights, Jakob returning to his Finnish homeland to face his ex-wife in court. Events though, take a much darker twist than anyone would have predicted, and Jakob has more secrets than anyone would have guessed.
That’s not to say back in rural Iceland, Detective Hildur is having an easier ride. When a body is found in a salmon pen on a local fish farm, the police are initially at a loss for motive or perpetrator, but as more victims emerge, they are all being attacked in line with the Yule Boys legend. It is only when the police stumble across a link between the up to now random victims that the pieces begin to fall into place.
As in Rämö’s earlier works, though, this is a multi-thread story arc. While Hildur is still coming to terms with the truth about her sisters that was revealed in The Grave in The Ice, its Jakob’s tale Centre stage this time.
Jakob has been a fascinating creation since his first appearance. Initially, the outsider, coming to the remote Northern Iceland he acted as our entry into the world of the Westfjords. Forging a new career to escape a painful past, this knitting-loving trainee detective instantly grabbed attention.
Always a complex character and somewhat of a conundrum, Jakob is something of a paradox. The ‘new boy’, yet also a skilled detective, the calming influence who has an explosive temper when provoked, there has always been the impression that there’s more about Jakob that he publicly shares.
Rämö finally unravels some of the mystery behind Jakob here. We learn more about the tumultuous relationship between the Finn and his Norwegian ex-wife and the road that led them to the custody battle that now plays out here.
Rämö’s works can be a slow burn, and the same is true of The Shadow of The Northern Lights initially. The opening chapters take a while to get going, but the pace shifts up several gears in the second half, with subplots arriving faster than the falling snow. At times, it feels like there are two books here being shoehorned into one, but Rämö manages to pull it off, resolving the disparate threads with some satisfying twists.
Rämö’s works may not always be fully polished, but there’s a gritty realism that keeps the readers coming back for more. After The Shadow of The Northern Lights and its predecessors, we now know more about Hildur and Jakob but there’s clearly more to discover. With TV rights having just been secured and a fourth book, The Secrets of The Deep landing for English readers in May 2026, there’s more trips to the Westfjords to come.
The Shadow of The Northern Lights by Satu Rämö, translated by Kristian London, is published by Zaffre and not now.
