About the book
The Creak in the Stairs is the great revelation of Scandinoir and winner of three literary awards: the CWA New Blood Dagger, the Storytel Award for Best Crime Novel, and the Blackbird Award for Best Icelandic Crime Novel.
The story begins when some young people find the body of a woman in the lighthouse of the Icelandic city of Akranes. Elma is a police officer who has just returned to Akranes, her hometown, and she will be the one to lead an investigation that will bring to light long-hidden crimes. Elma and her team will face rejection from the shocked local community and will have to dodge constant threats and seek justice… before it is too late.
The Times newspaper has praised it as “a full-fledged mystery book” and also as “a chilling demonstration of how monsters are created.”
You hear it long before you see it. She hears the creak as he cautiously climbs the stairs step by step. He tries not to stomp because he doesn’t want to wake anyone up, not yet. If she were the one walking up the stairs in the middle of the night, she would make it all the way to the top without anyone hearing her. But she can’t do it. He doesn’t know stairs like she does, he doesn’t know where to step.
She closes her eyes so tightly that the muscles around them ache. And she breathes slowly and deeply, hoping he doesn’t hear how fast her heart is beating. Because a heart only beats so fast when you are awake; awake and extremely scared. She remembers when she listened to her father’s heart. He must have walked down the stairs a thousand times before stopping and calling out to her. “Listen,” he had told her. «Listen to how fast my heart beats. “A body needs more oxygen when it moves, and the heart is responsible for providing it.” But now, even though she is lying down and completely still, her heart is beating much faster than her father’s was then.
Its coming.
He recognizes the creak of the last step, just as he recognizes the clatter of the roof when there is a gale, or the creak of the downstairs door when his mother comes home. Tiny stars appear and float across her eyelids. They are not like the stars in the sky: those barely move, and you only see how they move if you observe them for a long time, and that is with luck. But she’s out of luck. She’s never had it. He senses her presence standing over her, panting like an old man. The stench of cigarettes fills his nose. If she looked up, she would see dark gray eyes staring at her. Instinctively, she pulls the comforter up to cover her face. But she can’t hide. That small movement will have given her away: she will have realized that she is only pretending to sleep. But that won’t change things. She never has.
*Original content provided by the publisher
Source: https://algunoslibrosbuenos.com/el-crujido-en-la-escalera
