The Lost House by Melissa Larsen

 

First Line: I hope I haunt you.

Forty years ago, Iceland was rocked by two deaths: a woman, throat slashed, was found out in the snow with her drowned infant daughter nestled beside her. The case was never solved, but people were convinced that the woman's husband was the killer. When the man took his son and moved half a world away to California, it just proved that the gossip was right.

Almost fifty years later and a year after his death, Agnes wants to clear her beloved grandfather's name once and for all. Recovering from his death and a devastating injury, Agnes' life has been turned upside down, so she quickly agrees to true crime podcaster Nora Carver's invitation to come to Iceland to be interviewed.

The very same weekend that Agnes joins Nora in the remote town where her grandfather and father lived, a local girl goes missing. Is this a coincidence? Even if it isn't, it only fuels Agnes' determination to clear her grandfather's name.

~

Iceland in winter. A derelict house where a murderer allegedly lived. A young woman determined to clear her grandfather's name. Everything stacked up in Melissa Larsen's The Lost House to make it a book that I should really enjoy.

The creepy, ramshackle house and the brutal Icelandic winter weather did draw me in, but those were the only two things that did. The whodunit was not surprising, and the story moved very slowly-- sometimes with too much description.

The nail in the coffin of The Lost House was its characters. This is a book where you must care for the main character, and Agnes never did grow on me. She was a lonely addict riddled with angst-- definitely not my kind of character.  Moreover, none of the others could fill in the gap. No, I'm sorry to say that this character-driven reader never did warm up to Agnes, but your mileage can certainly vary. 

The Lost House by Melissa Larsen

eISBN: 9781250332882

St. Martin's Press © 2025

eBook, 352 pages

Thriller

Rating: D+

Source: Net Galley