{"id":5651,"date":"2026-01-04T01:40:57","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/the-mist-jonasson-ragnar\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T01:40:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T01:40:57","slug":"the-mist-jonasson-ragnar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/the-mist-jonasson-ragnar\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mist – Jonasson, Ragnar"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Book Preview<\/h3>\n
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<\/span>Prologue<\/h1>\n<\/header>\n

February 1988<\/i><\/p>\n

Hulda Hermannsd\u00f3ttir opened her eyes.<\/p>\n

So heavy and unrelenting was the sense of lethargy weighing her down that she felt as if she\u2019d been drugged. She could have gone on sleeping all day, even here in her hard chair. It was just as well that, as a detective, she merited an office to herself. It meant she could shut the door on the outside world and wait for the hours to pass, either by staring into space or letting her eyelids droop. Meanwhile, the documents piled up on the desk in front of her. Since returning from leave two weeks ago she hadn\u2019t got to grips with a single case.<\/p>\n

This neglect hadn\u2019t gone entirely unnoticed by her boss, Snorri, although, to his credit, he was treating her with patient understanding. The fact was she\u2019d simply had to come back to work; she couldn\u2019t bear to spend another minute cooped up in the house with J\u00f3n. Even the breathtaking natural beauty of their home on \u00c1lftanes couldn\u2019t work its magic on her these days. She was deaf to the <\/span>sighing of the waves and blind to the stars and Northern Lights shimmering across the sky. She and J\u00f3n hardly spoke to each other, and she\u2019d given up initiating any conversations with him, although she still answered if he addressed her directly.<\/p>\n

The February darkness did nothing to help. It was the coldest, greyest time of the year, and every new day seemed to bring a deterioration in the weather. As if things weren\u2019t bad enough, the snow had been coming down heavily that month, burying the city in a muffling layer and clogging its arteries. Cars kept getting stuck in the streets, and it took all Hulda\u2019s skill to navigate the unploughed back roads of \u00c1lftanes in her Skoda, despite its regulation studded tyres, before making it safely on to the main road at K\u00f3pavogur.<\/p>\n

For a while she had doubted she would ever return to work. In fact, she\u2019d doubted she would ever leave the house again, or find the strength to crawl out from under her duvet. But in the end there were only two options: to stay at home with J\u00f3n or sit in her office from dawn to dusk, even if she achieved little in the way of work.<\/p>\n

Having opted for the office, she struggled to concentrate and instead spent her days moving files and reports from one pile to another, trying to read them but feeling unable to focus. Things couldn\u2019t go on like this, she reasoned; they had to get better. Of course, she would never get over her guilt \u2013 she knew that \u2013 but the pain would inevitably be blunted over time. At least she could cling to that hope. But for now her anger towards J\u00f3n, far from dissipating, was growing and festering. With every day that <\/span>passed she could sense the rage and hatred churning ever more corrosively inside her, and she knew that it wasn\u2019t doing her any good, but she just couldn\u2019t control her emotions. She had to find an outlet for them somehow\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n

When the phone rang on her desk, Hulda didn\u2019t react. Lost in a dark, private world, she didn\u2019t even raise her eyes until it had rung several times. Then, at last, moving sluggishly, as if under water, she picked up the receiver. \u2018Hulda.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Hello, Hulda. Snorri here.\u2019<\/p>\n

She immediately felt unsettled. Her boss didn\u2019t usually ring her unless it was urgent. Their contact was normally limited to morning meetings, and he didn\u2019t, as a rule, interfere much in the day-to-day handling of her investigations.<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh, hello,\u2019 she said after a slight delay.<\/p>\n

\u2018Could you pop in and see me? Something\u2019s come up.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m on my way.\u2019 She put down the receiver, rose to her feet and checked her appearance in the small mirror she kept in her handbag. However awful she felt, she was determined not to show any sign of weakness at work. Of course, none of her colleagues could be in any doubt of the state she was in, but what she dreaded more than anything was being sent on compassionate leave again. The only way to hang on to the shreds of her sanity was to keep herself busy.<\/p>\n

Snorri greeted her with a smile as she stepped into his office, which was so much larger than her own. Feeling the waves of sympathy emanating from him, she cursed under her breath, afraid any show of kindness from him would undermine her hard-won self-control.<\/p>\n

<\/span>\u2018How are you, Hulda?\u2019 he asked, waving her to a seat before she had a chance to reply.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fine, fine, under the circumstances.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018How are you finding being back in the office?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m just getting into gear again. Tying up the loose ends on some of last year\u2019s cases. It\u2019s all coming along.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Are you absolutely sure you\u2019re up to it?\u2019 Snorri asked. \u2018I\u2019m perfectly happy to grant you more time off, should you need it. Of course, we<\/i> need you here too, as you know, but we want to be sure you\u2019re up to coping with the more challenging cases.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I can understand that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018And are you?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Am I what?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Up to coping?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yes,\u2019 she lied, looking him straight in the eye.<\/p>\n

\u2018Right, well. In that case, something\u2019s come up and I\u2019d like you to look into it, Hulda.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018An ugly business.\u2019 He paused before frowning and emphasizing his words with a wave of his arm: \u2018Bloody<\/i> ugly, in fact. Suspected murder out east. We need to send someone over there right now. I\u2019m so sorry to spring this on you so soon after your return, but no one else with your experience is free at the moment.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hulda thought he could have done a better job of dressing this up as a compliment, but never mind.<\/p>\n

\u2018Of course I can go. I\u2019m perfectly up to it,\u2019 she replied, aware even as she said it that this was a lie. \u2018Whereabouts in the east?\u2019<\/p>\n

<\/span>\u2018Oh, some farmhouse miles from anywhere. It\u2019s unbelievable anyone\u2019s still making a go of farming out there.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Who\u2019s the victim? Do we know yet?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018The victim? Oh, sorry, Hulda, I didn\u2019t give you the full story. We\u2019re not just talking about one body\u2026\u2019 He paused. \u2018Apparently, the discovery was pretty horrific. It\u2019s not clear how long the bodies have been lying there, but they\u2019re guessing since Christmas at least\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Book Preview Prologue February 1988 Hulda Hermannsd\u00f3ttir opened her eyes. So heavy and unrelenting was the sense of lethargy weighing her down that she felt as if she\u2019d been drugged. She could have gone on sleeping all day, even here in her hard chair. It was just as well that, as a detective, she merited … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[387],"class_list":["post-5651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ragnar-jonasson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epub-book.com\/download\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}