Book Review: Someone to Watch Over Me

Good crime thrillers are hard to come by. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised with Yrsa Sigurðardóttir's Someone to Watch Over Me. The novel, about the deaths of five care home residents and an unrelated hit-and-run of a babysitter, has a definite sense of place and a gripping plot-line that makes for an engrossing read. So much so that I finished the entire book in one sitting. Not many novels can stake a claim to that, at least in recent times. As always with any good mystery, there are several strands with seemingly no outward connection between them, but you know they must be somehow related, and Yrsa ties them all together with clever twists and turns that keep the story going at a breakneck pace. It also helps that the investigation is rooted in reality and that the characters come across as likeable, their lives worth caring about. Set against the backdrop of Iceland's financial crisis, Someone to Watch Over Me is a suspenseful page-turner.