Icelandic author Sigurdardottir departs from her Thora Gudmundsdottir mystery series (The Day Is Dark) with this stand-alone supernatural mystery. Three friends purchase a rundown house in a remote Icelandic village with the intention of renovating it into a guesthouse. They arrive by boat during the frigid off-season and find that the isolated town is abandoned for the winter and that their house is lacking any modern comforts such as electricity or running water. What could make things even worse? A ghost may be trying to kill them. Elsewhere in the country, Freyr, a psychologist still grieving for his missing son, is called to the scene of a vandalized school to help profile the perpetrator. Then he begins to find links among the school, his current patients, and his son's disappearance, while his ex-wife warns him that the ghost of his son is trying to contact him. Disbelieving yet shaken, Freyr tries to piece together the clues of the past and current events, leading him to that rundown house. VERDICT Sigurdardottir has written an excellent and seriously scary mystery with tangible and supernatural elements that will appeal to fans of John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In).—Melissa DeWild, Kent District Lib., Comstock Park, MI