Katrín Jakobsdóttir has been Prime Minister of Iceland since 2017 and leader of the Left Party – the Greens. In addition to that, she is a literary scholar and has studied crime novels.
She met crime writer Ragnar Jónasson when they were both on the jury to select the country's best translated crime novel.
It was he who came up with the idea of writing a book together, which Katrín Jakobsóttir thought sounded like a good idea at the time.
"I had never really planned to keep that promise. But when the pandemic hit and everything changed, we somehow decided to try to write this book in the evenings, during the times when I would otherwise have been in meetings doing things that weren't allowed during the pandemic.
"Everyone carries a book in their heart"
The fact that a sitting prime minister writes and launches a novel at the same time as she leads the country is not something that surprises Icelanders, according to Katrín Jakobsdóttir.
"We have a saying in Iceland that every person carries at least one book in their heart," says Katrín Jakobsdóttir.
Iceland has a long tradition of book lovers. Approximately one in ten Icelanders will have a book published during their lifetime, and per capita they print more books than any other country in the world.
"Everyone knew about my interest in crime novels, about my studies and all that before. So writing is something that's expected to be done here – not just politicians.