(hb; 2014, 2015: fourteenth book in the Reykjavik Thriller series. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb)
From the inside flap:
"It is 1979, a few years after Reykjavik Nights closed, and Erlendur is now a detective, already divorced, and is working for the shadowy Marion Briem. A body of a man has been found in the blue lagoon, which has not yet become the tourist spot it is today. Apparently the victim fell from a great height, and at first the police investigate the possibility that he has been thrown out of an airplane.
". . .Erlendur is also asked to investigate the cold case of a young girl who vanished into thin air on her way to school forty years earlier. . ."
Review:
Oblivion is an excellent novel, one worth owning. As a police procedural, the true villains of the book and their motives are easy to spot (given the milieu-reflective sparseness of characters), but this is not a criticism of Oblivion: rather it is the journey, tinged with political intrigue, the haunted emotional resonance of the characters and masterful writing and editing, that made Oblivion difficult to set down. Like the rest of the Reykjavik Thriller series, this is worth your time and cash.
(hb; 2014: thirteenth book in the Reykjavik Thriller series. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb)
From the inside flap:
"As the book opens, Erlendur is a young officer assigned to traffic duties. He is not yet a detective. He works nights. Reykjavik's nights are full of car crashes, robberies, fights, drinking, and sometimes unexplained death.
"One night a homeless man Erlendur knows is found drowned. Few people care. Then a young woman on her way home from a club vanishes, and both cases go cold.
"But Erlendur's instincts tell him that the fates of these two victims are worth pursuing. He is inexorably drawn into a world where everyone is either in the dark or on the run."
Review:
Reykjavik is a crisp-prosed, engaging police procedural. There are plenty of twists, solid characters and effective mood-setting in this waste-no-words Reykjavik Thriller novel, a prequel to Jar City. This, like all the other books in this series, is worth your time. Check it out.
Followed by Into Oblivion.
(hb; 2010, 2012: eleventh book in the Reykjavik Thriller series. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb)
From the inside flap:
"In this latest puzzle, Inspector Erlendur learns of the baffling story of Matthildur, a local woman who went missing years earlier on the night of a violent storm. A frequent visitor to his birthplace, Erlendur has spent his whole life searching for his brother, Beggi, who was lost in a snowstorm when they were both children. As he begins to ask questions about the fateful evening when Matthildur disappeared, Erlendur begins to suspect what may have also befallen his long-lost brother.
"Can Erlendur possibly solve the disappearances of Matthildur and Beggi after all these decades? Or are the forces that want him to stop investigating stronger than he is?"
Review:
Strange is a mood-effective (wintry, stark, moody), reader-hooking disappearance - possibly murder - mystery, one worth checking out from the library. There's a nice mention of the events of the sixth Erlender book, The Draining Lake, which adds a thematic layer to Strange.
The twists in Strange aren't surprising, but with Indriđason's work it's often about the journey not the destination. The ending is a promising lead-in to the next book in the series, a loosely linked side-prequel, The Chess Match, as well as another prequel, Reyjavik Nights.
(hb; 2009, 2012: tenth book in the Reykjavik Thriller series. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb)
From the inside flap:
"A man is making a leather mask with an iron spike fixed in the middle of the forehead. Meanwhile, a school reunion has left Inspector Erlendur's colleague Sigurdur Óli unhappy with life in the police force. While Iceland is enjoying an economic boom, Óli's relationship is on the rocks and soon even his position in the department is compromised. When a favor to a friend goes wrong and a woman dies before his eyes, Óli has a murder investigation on his hands."
Review:
More of why-they-did-it than a whodunit, this is a good, solid police procedural from a consistently excellent, crisp-prose penning author. Some readers, like myself, may pick up on who the killers are, but the writing and the characters - many of them ongoing - are (still) interesting and the story doesn't lag.
Black Skies is worth your time. Check it out.
Followed by Strange Shores.
(hb; 2007, 2009: eighth book in the Reykjavik Thriller series. Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb)
From the inside flap:
"Inspector Erlendur has spent his entire career struggling to evade the ghosts of his past. But ghosts are visiting him, both in the form of a séance attended by a dead woman and also in the reemerging puzzle of two young people who went missing thirty years ago. And there's the ghost of the detective's disastrous marriage, which despite the pleas of his drug-addled daughter, he is unwilling to confront. In addition, he's still obsessed with the disappearance of his brother, who vanished without a trace when they were boys.
"He can only run from his ghosts for so long, and when they finally catch up with him, Erlendur is forced to face the heart-shattering truth of his past."
Review:
Structurally ambitious, entertaining and character progressive entry in the Reykjavik Thriller series.
As with previous Erlendur Sveinsson novels, the mystery element doesn't necessarily extend to the identity of the perpetrator(s) or the victim(s), but, rather, the hows and wherefores of the case(s).
Worth owning, this series.
Followed by Outrage.
(hb; 2005: seventh book in the Reykjavik Thriller series. Translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder and Victoria Cribb)
From the inside flap:
"On an icy January day, the Reykjavik police are called to a block of apartments where a body has been found in the garden: a young, dark-skinned boy, frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood.
"Erlendur and his teams embark on their investigation and soon unearth tensions simmering beneath the surface of Iceland's outwardly liberal, multicultural society. Meanwhile, the boy's murder forces Erlendur to confront the tragedy in his own past. And before long, facts emerge from the snow-filled darkness that are even more chilling than the Arctic night."
Review:
Good, entertaining and character progressive entry in the Reykjavik Thriller series, as worthwhile as the previous Erlendur Sveinsson books.
Worth owning, this series.
Followed by Hypothermia.
