Arnauldur Indridason

HYPOTHERMIA - Arnauldur Indridason

Author Information
Book Title: 
Hypothermia
Author Name: 
Arnauldur Indridason
Author's Home Country: 
Iceland
ISBN: 
9781846552625
Series: 
Erlunder
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Sub Genre: 
Police Procedural
Location: 
Iceland
Publisher: 
Harvill Secker
Year of Publication: 
2009

One cold autumn night, a woman is found hanging from a beam in her summer cottage by Lake Thingvellir.  At first sight, it appears to be a straightforward case of suicide; the woman, Maria, has never recovered from the loss of her mother two years earlier and had a history of depression.  But when Karen, the friend who found her body, approaches Erlendur and gives him the tape of a séance that Maria had attended, his curiosity is aroused.

Book Review: 

Less of a review - closer to a drool, HYPOTHERMIA is the latest in one of my all time favourite series of books from Icelandic author Arnauldur Indridason.  If you've not read any of the earlier books, coming to HYPOTHERMIA from the start could still work, but part of what is really wonderful about this series is the slow unfolding of the backstory of the central detective Erlendur. 

Erlendur is very much of the "rumpled / crumpled" detective genre - somebody who life has dealt some complicated hands to.  Whilst he shuffles those cards, the reader is taken through his current life, his relationships with his estranged children, his childhood and his family tragedy.  Still with that Nordic sense of constraint, thoughtfulness and introspection, there's also something lighter and hopeful in the sub-themes of HYPOTHERMIA, despite the puzzling suicide of a woman in a beautiful lakeside location.  Her obsession with the loss of her mother, and the drowning of her father when she was a child takes Erlendur back to what happened to events from her childhood, somehow giving him permission (or the will) to explore his own history, and the death of his young brother in a blizzard many years before.

Within this series there has always been a strong sense of Icelandic culture and beliefs, from their particular personal name conventions in earlier books, to a real sense of the relationship between the present and the supernatural in this book in particular.  And it's not just Erlendur's personal circumstances that leads to an exploration of the past and the present - there is often a theme within the books that pursues exactly the effect that past events (sometimes hidden, sometimes not) have on the current lives of many of the characters.

Along with the rumpled / crumpled detective styling, Erlendur has an admirable sense of justice and duty.  He doesn't give up, he doesn't accept the obvious (in this case the rapid verdict of suicide) and he is prepared to stick to the task until the truth is revealed - no matter what the consequences.  Having said that he, and this author, are not unaware of the effect of this sort of persistence.  Grief, loss, guilt and confusion are beautifully illustrated, as is there often a cheeky sense of humour.

HYPOTHERMIA is an outstanding example of everything that is wonderful about crime.  The book transports the reader to the place and the culture in which it is set, the landscape, the people, their particular way of looking at the world are woven into the threads of grief, loss, cause and effect seamlessly.  There is pace to the story, alongside lyrical, beautiful storytelling and there are wonderful, believable, flawed characters to follow.  Hopefully for lots of books to come.

SILENCE OF THE GRAVE - Arnaldur Indridason

Author Information
Book Title: 
Silence of the Grave
Author Name: 
Arnauldur Indridason
Author's Home Country: 
Iceland
ISBN: 
1843431858
Series: 
Erlunder
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Sub Genre: 
Police Procedural
Location: 
Iceland
Publisher: 
Harvill
Year of Publication: 
2005
Book Review: 

Erlendur (who was first introduced to us in Tainted Blood (aka Jar City)) is called to the investigation of a skeleton, found in a shallow grave on an area that used to be open hills outside Reykjavik. When the skeleton was buried this was sparsely populated with a few summer chalets. Just to complicate matters the skeleton could also be from the time when there was a British and then American Army base in the area. It could be an Icelander who once got lost in the snow.
 
The investigation is complicated by the age of the burial; the slow and painstaking excavation of it by archaeologists; and by the location and the lack of information about any of the possible residents of that area. As Erlendur and his team slowly work through all the possibilities, the hills reveal they have had more than their fair share of family tragedy, brutality and heartache.
 
Erlendur is also confronted by the mess of his own family when his estranged daughter contacts him briefly, desperate for urgent help. As the investigation continues and Erlendur's family crisis continues there is a gradual revealing of many of the things that have happened in his own past - making him the person that he is today. Just in the same way as many of the events in the families who are eventually connected to the nearby Summer Chalet slowly reveal themselves.
 
SILENCE OF THE GRAVE is involving and highly compelling. The story of the investigation and the life of Erlendur are intertwined so that they provide both a contrast and also an explanation of how people become who they are or react like they do. Even in translation there's a feel in the writing of these books that is smooth, natural, hypnotic almost. In SILENCE OF THE GRAVE the story moves along until the later few chapters when the true circumstances behind the skeleton speed up the pace and the whole story is revealed. At the same time Erlendur's life is revealed.
 
As I said in my review of Tainted Blood (http://tinyurl.com/qrfpz) Erlendur is now somebody I like to worry about.

TAINTED BLOOD (aka JAR CITY) - Arnaldur Indridason

Author Information
Book Title: 
Tainted Blood
Jar City
Author Name: 
Arnauldur Indridason
Author's Home Country: 
Iceland
ISBN: 
0099461633
Series: 
Erlunder
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Sub Genre: 
Police Procedural
Location: 
Iceland
Publisher: 
Vintage
Year of Publication: 
2005
Book Review: 

Recently awarded a Golden Dagger for his second book in the series, Silence of the Grave, Arnaldur Indriadason's first book Tainted Blood, or Jar City as it was originally titled in English, is a taut, sparsely written police procedural set in a grey, cold and wet Reykjavik, Iceland.
 
An elderly man is murdered in his flat and initially it seems he has been the victim of a robbery gone wrong. Detective Erlendur is not so sure, based on a rather cryptic and inexplicable note found on the body and despite his colleagues amusement and scepticism, he continues to reject the easy solution.
 
Erlendur is a divorced, lonely fifytish, shambolic, disorganised man with family problems. His children are both drug-addicts, his daughter is a particular worry and his ex-wife will not have anything to do with him. He is increasingly suffering from chest pains and just does not look after himself, but he is saved from becoming a cliche by his self-awareness and his reactions to his family. He is frustrated by his daughter and as she attempts to draw closer he reacts against her and her life. When his ex-wife asks for help to look for the missing daughter of friends of his, he helps, but he is not really sure why he gets involved and he does not like what he finds when he does.
 
Iceland is also an unexpected setting. There are interesting points of difference in their culture not the least of which being everybody uses first names there, even in the telephone directory. Murder is not so common in Erlendur's Reykjavik but crime definitely doesn't seem to surprise anyone. Criminals are known to the police, and names and events are dragged up from many years ago that seem very vivid in everyone's memory.
 
As they investigate further, it is clear that the victim has a nasty past and whilst it seems that somehow that past has caught up with him, his cohorts from those days cannot be involved and the trail eventually leads Erlendur to a child's grave.
 
In many ways Tainted Blood is a very traditional police procedural with some interesting touches and twists. The writing is sparse, elegant and very visual. The plot is well constructed, a little predictable towards the end as the layers start to unfold, but the story by that stage is so sad and so compelling that you are drawn along regardless. The personal story of Erlendur does not detract from the investigation and adds a level to his personality that makes him feel like a real person that you can empathise with.
 
This is a good, solid police procedural with a compelling and real central Detective that avoids becoming a direct copy of his counterparts, Kurt Wallender and John Rebus, but could easily become somebody else to worry about.

THE DRAINING LAKE - Arnaldur Indridason

Author Information
Book Title: 
The Draining Lake
Author Name: 
Arnauldur Indridason
Author's Home Country: 
Iceland
ISBN: 
9781846550959
Series: 
Erlunder
Categorisation
Category: 
Crime Fiction
Sub Genre: 
Police Procedural
Location: 
Iceland
Publisher: 
Harvill Secker
Year of Publication: 
2007

FROM THE BOOK:  Following an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic Lake suddenly falls, revealing a skeleton half-buried in its sandy bed.  It has clearly been there many years.  There is a large hole in the skull.  Yet more mysteriously, it is weighted down by a heavy radio device bearing inscriptions in Russian.

Book Review: 

The fourth book translated into English by this Icelandic author takes a wide sweep through Iceland and time in THE DRAINING LAKE.  In the Cold War era bright, left-wing Icelandic students were sent to study in Communist East Germany.  The only lead and possible connection between the recently discovered skeleton and these student activities is very tenuous in the first place - the Russian equipment the corpse must have been weighted down with is Erlendur's only possible clue to the dead man's identity.  That and a series of missing person reports of men from around the same time.  In such a small society it seems inconceivable that these men could have just gone missing, but those reports, a possible car and a very weak series of clues are worked long and hard by Erlendur and his team in an attempt to identify this man and find out the truth of his death.
 
In THE DRAINING LAKE Erlendur is slowly getting his life together, his children are still causing him confusion and pain, but he seems to be more able to understand the impact that his past is having on him - there's also the smallest glimmer of a future with somebody he is very attracted to.  The other members of his team are dealing with their own ongoing lives and there's a nice sense of progress and things changing in the team, without it distracting overly from the central story.  There's a bit of time-shifting in THE DRAINING LAKE as well as you move back to the students in East Germany and then forward to the current day events in Iceland.  
 
I really love this series - the books have such a great sense of place and personality and THE DRAINING LAKE is holding up the same involving standard of the early books.
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