This was a wonderful, slow-burner of a book that segues between war-time Reykjavik in 1944 and the present. In 1944, a policeman named Flovent, an Icelandic expatriate named Thorson who is seconded to the military police, try to solve the brutal murder of a beautiful young Icelandic woman outside the national theatre. Initially suspecting the influx of US soldiers and the way they captivate the local girls who take unseemly risks to be responsible, they soon find they need to look closer to home.
Back in the present a retired detective, Konrad is asked to investigate the death of an elderly man who is found dead in his apartment. When a post-mortem reveals his death is, in fact, murder, Konrad cannot fathom who would want to kill this inoffensive, quiet man. It’s not until Konrad starts delving into his past and discovers he was not only a military policeman, but part of an inquiry into the terrible murder of a young woman during the war, that Konrad understands the two cases, even though they’re separated by decades, might be connected.
While back in 1944 a perpetrator was taken into custody, tragic events followed his arrest. Evidently, these continued to haunt the now dead old man and thus, they haunt Konrad as well. Moreso when he discovers his own tenuous connection to the case.
It’s now up to Konrad to pick up where the old man left off and see if he can finally lay the ghosts that disturbed him to rest.
Atmospheric, very character driven, the intertwining of past and present works so well, weaving threads into a tight-knit solution.
There are some outstanding Scandi-noir writers and stories out there, and I am delighted to have found another to add to my reading pleasures!
mysteries I’ve read and proves what a consistently strong series and masterful writer Indridason is.
The fifth book in the Inspector Erlendur series, Voices, is the second book featuring this rather glum but fascinating detective I’ve read and won’t be the last. The setting for this novel is an ostentatious Reykjavik hotel at Christmas time. Instead of being a joyous occasion, the planned festivities for the hotel guests, staff and children turn decidedly sour when the hotel’s Santa, Gulli, a rather simple but dedicated employee who was about to be sacked, is found naked and dead and in a very compromising position.
Jar City is the second book in the Inspector Erlendur series (but the first with the inspector translated into English), that I’ve read as part of what’s swiftly turning into a Nordic noir/crime word-feast.
Normally I try and avoid reading series, especially crime series, out of order. However, with Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason, which I is number four in the Inspector Erlendur series, it doesn’t seem to matter. Such is the pace and quality of the writing that you’re immediately flung into the world of the dour, melancholic Inspector with the fractured family and the cold-case murder he investigates.
