THE MIST

A trio of interlinked horrors unfold in the days leading up to Iceland’s celebration of Christmas 1987.

Maybe the following February is too soon for Detective Hulda Hermannsdóttir to have returned to work at Reykjavík CID. Assigned to reopen the case of Unnur, a girl from Gardabaet who vanished last autumn during the tour of Iceland she undertook on foot before enrolling in college, Hulda thinks it’s the worst possible investigation she could have been handed because she’s still reeling from the darkly hinted domestic catastrophe that began with the withdrawn behavior of Dimma, her own teenager, and alienated her from her husband, Jón, over the holidays. As Hulda, who’s not “kidding herself that there would be any happy ending,” soldiers on in search of the missing Unnur, Jónasson counterpoints her inquiries with excruciatingly paced stages of a flashback to the days before Christmas, when family farmer Einar Einarsson’s wife, Erla, opens the door of their house to Leó, a lost stranger who claims to have gotten separated from other members of his hunting party. A wintry storm prevents Leó from leaving, and with every hour that passes, Erla uncovers more discrepancies in his story. Who is he really, why has he come to their isolated home, and what unspeakable plans does he have in mind?

Jónasson weaves his suspenseful tales together with remorseless logic up to a climax more nightmarish than the buildup.