Category Archives: Iceland

Review: BLACK SKIES by Arnaldur Indriðason

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BlackSkiesIndridasonHaving complained at length about authors who persist in producing the same book over and over again I applaud Arnaldur Indriðason’s willingness to experiment by allowing different protagonists to drive his novels. The fact that he has pulled it off very successfully, for the second time in a row, is a triumph.

BLACK SKIES is the eighth novel in the Reykjavik series of police procedurals but the second one in succession in which the series’ main character, detective Erlunder, is absent from his workplace (for reasons none of his co-workers seem sure of) and the novel. The story takes place in 2005 during the height of Iceland’s economic boom and at the same time as events described in the previous novel OUTRAGE, but here the investigative duties fall to another of Erlunder’s colleagues Sigurdur Óli. It opens with Sigurdur Óli attending a reunion of his high school class at which he feels himself to be the least successful of his classmates, many of whom are making it big in the new economy. However one of those people soon calls on him for a favour. Would Sigurdur Óli mind putting a bit of unofficial pressure on a couple who are blackmailing the man’s sister-in-law and her husband who took part in a wife-swapping escapade? When Sigurdur Óli goes to the blackmailing couple’s house on this errand he finds the woman on the floor with her head bashed in. He attempts to chase the assailant who was still on the scene but soon loses him. For understandable but not terribly clever reasons Sigurdur Óli doesn’t immediately come clean with his colleagues regarding the personal reason for his visit to the woman’s house and so assists with the official investigation while continuing to carry on his own inquiries due to the knowledge that only he possesses.

It is only now that I’ve sat down to write a review containing an even vaguely intelligent synopsis that I’ve realised just how complex and intricate the plot of BLACK SKIES is. Indriðason really is a master at telling stories with lots of layers that don’t make the reader feel like they’re reading a creative writing thesis rather than a novel. It’s bloody great art. Just as you think the book is going to focus on the sexual shenanigans of bored suburbanites it twists to offer the possibility of a drug deal gone bad. And then another turn….what are the wretched bankers up to and how might it relate to the death of a tour guide? Indriðason ties this all together beautifully and manages to encircle the investigative narrative with another thread that follows the story of a derelict called Anders who keeps crossing Sigurdur Óli’s path. His story, slowly revealed over the course of the novel, is a heartbreaking one and despite his self-confessed and innate sense of superiority over people like Anders the case becomes something of a watershed for Sigurdur Óli,

Another element that elevates BLACK SKIES above the norm for me is the character of Sigurdur Óli. He bares few of the traits of the great and memorable fictional cops. He’s not a genius, he’s not a workaholic, he’s not tortured by the souls of the deaths he has investigated. He’s a pretty ordinary guy doing a job he fell into and some days he’d rather be doing something else. But even without the trappings of the genre’s stalwarts he is still a wonderfully drawn character who we do see struggle with some aspects of his life, working out how his marriage failed for example, while trying to do a good job even when he doesn’t like his work and maintaining his moral core in the face of pressure. He is, I suspect, a lot closer to real cops than many of his more famous fictional brethren.

There’s much more I could talk about, including the novel’s unpacking of Iceland’s part in the global economic meltdown which is fascinating, but I think it’s time to simply recommend the book without qualification. It’s one of those crime novels I think could be read and enjoyed by non crime fans too and I don’t think you need to have read the earlier novels in the series in order to read this one. I’ve never been so frustrated by my own monolingual status as I am at knowing this book’s sequel is available but only if I can learn to read Icelandic.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Translator Victoria Cribb
Publisher Harvill Secker [2012]
ISBN/ASIN 9781846555404
Length 330 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #8 in the Reykjavik series

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Review: 66° NORTH by Michael Ridpath

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In early 2009 many of Iceland’s residents took to the Reykjavik streets to protest their government’s response to the country’s deep financial crisis and this real-world event forms the backdrop for the start of this fictional, though highly credible, story. At one protest several strangers meet. They include Harpa, a young single mother who worked at one of the banks which played such a major role in ruining the country’s economy, Bjorn, a fisherman who lost his boat and most of his money due to the crisis and Sindri Palsson, an ageing writer and political radical. The group has a few drinks together following the end of the protest and then become involved in a very unsavoury event. Later in the year the former head of the same bank that Harpa had worked for is killed in London. English police wonder if there is an Icelandic connection to the murder and Magnus Jonson, an Icelandic born American trained cop who is working with Icelandic police, willingly gets involved with the investigation.

More than one reviewer has remarked on Ridpath’s bravery (or is it chutzpah?) in taking on the Scandinavian crime writers at their own game but, from what I can tell, he’s a match for the locals. At any rate this story is very topical and seems to have captured some of the things that are unique to Iceland’s experience of the global financial collapse (known there as the kreppa). Ridpath uses his character’s differing experiences of the crisis, as minor players, victims or police trying to keep control without using the harsh violence similar protests in other countries have attracted, to show readers just how deeply this tiny country was affected by the world’s recent banking-led madness. Knowing little about the book before embarking on it I hadn’t expected this aspect but found it utterly compelling (and a lesson to lesser authors in the show-don’t-tell methodology of writing).

The main story too was, somewhat surprisingly, very engaging. It’s not every author who can keep readers’ attention after revealing significant portions of the ‘whodunnit’ element of the story early on but Ridpath manages it by leaving enough details hidden and throwing in a red herring or three. He also incorporates a whole other story about Magnus’ family history which includes the murder of his father a few years earlier and other dark events from the family’s past. This helps to flesh out the character of Magnus and provide some explanation for some of his character traits, although this element of the novel does get a bit woolly at times due to the many disparate threads that take a while to link up.

Overall though this is a well-paced mix of procedural and thriller and its exotic (to me) setting is interestingly displayed. Ridpath makes use of uniquely Icelandic things such as the country’s love of its literary sagas and the affect that being a small population has on society without resorting to over used stereotypes and the like. Seán Barrett, as always, does a fine job narrating the audio book (and helping me with my Icelandic pronunciation). A thoroughly recommended read.

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66° NORTH has been reviewed at Euro Crime.

I reviewed the first book in this series, WHERE THE SHADOWS LIE, last year

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My rating 4/5
Narrator Seán Barrett
Publisher Isis Publishing [this edition 2012, original edition 2011]
ASIN B007X62EEY
Length 12 hours 24 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #2 in the Fire and Ice series
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: Where the Shadows Lie by Michael Ridpath

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I have my reading fairy godmother to thank for my copy of this book and even though Ridpath is not a native Iclelander I am counting the book towards the Nordic Reading challenge as it takes place in Iceland and discusses an interesting aspect of the country’s history.

Magnus Jonson is a Boston cop who took the unusual step of reporting one of his colleagues for accepting payment to destroy evidence in a gang killing. Since then the gang leader has been trying to silence Magnus for good as he is the only witness in the case. After he and his girlfriend are nearly killed, Magnus’ boss tells him about a request from Iceland’s police authorities to have an American policeman advise them as their country starts to experience similar crimes to those which have been common in the US for years. As Magnus was born in Iceland and speaks the language he is the ideal candidate for the assignment and it is hoped it will put him out of reach of the gang until the case can be brought to trial. In Iceland Magnus’ first case is the investigation of the murder of a Professor of Icelandic literature who appears to have been killed due to his knowledge of the whereabouts of a written version of a previously secret ancient Icelandic saga which was the basis for one of the English speaking world’s most famous literary works.

Ridpath has created a very believable and enjoyable novel here about a man who feels like an outsider no matter where he is. Although he has lived in the US since he was 12 Magnus doesn’t fit in with the Boston Police anymore because he has reported his colleague and that’s just not the done thing (a sentiment I will never understand no matter how many times I see it depicted). And though he was born in Iceland he doesn’t quite fit in there either. He can’t be a ‘proper’ policeman until he does some study but even then he won’t be able to carry a gun (police in Iceland don’t) and many of the local cops aren’t thrilled to have an American telling them what do do. I really found myself feeling quite sorry for Magnus, especially as all this was followed up by learning some unpleasant things about his own family that meant his personal history wasn’t what he’d been led to believe either. No wonder the man went on a bender.

This is all set against a great backdrop of the country itself which is revealed differently to the way a native writer would do so but it is equally engaging. The adventure surrounding the saga is compelling, involving both outsiders desperate to own the written version as well as the current descendants of the original creators of the saga who have been impacted by their family’s role in the saga for generations. Involving elements of myth and legend this could have become a really corny plot line but was handled intelligently and very credibly. More general aspects of modern Iceland are also displayed thoughtfully including the country’s current financial woes and attitudes to foreigners of various kinds. The range of reactions to Magnus joining the local police, from outright hostility to near sycophancy, had a realistic feel as well.

I’m always a little wary of books written by people who don’t live in or have extensive experience of their setting but Ridpath’s love for the country is palpable and infectious. He has created an intriguing protagonist and an entertaining series debut. He has also left much scope to explore both the characters’ histories and the country in future installments of the series which I very much look forward to reading.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Where the Shadows Lie has been reviewed at Euro Crime (and a couple of other places too but they give away more of the plot than I would have liked to know before embarking on the novel so I’m not linking to them).

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My rating 3.5/5
Author website http://www.michaelridpath.com/
Publisher Corvus Books [2010]
ISBN 9781848873988
Length 344 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series #1 in the Fire and Ice series
Source a gift

Review: My Soul to Take by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

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The second novel to feature Icelandic lawyer Thóra Gudmundsdóttir opens with a chilling prologue from 1945 in which a young child appears is locked in some kind of cellar. The story proper takes place in contemporary times when Thóra is asked by the owner of a health spa, Jónas Júlíusson, to see if she can renegotiate the property’s sale price because it is haunted which is affecting staff and guests. When the architect working on the property’s extension is murdered and Jónas becomes a suspect her legal skills are tested. She and German lover Matthew, in Iceland for a holiday, investigate both the murder and its possible relationship to events from the past which may also explain the property’s haunting.

As with the first book in this series, Last Rituals, the most enjoyable aspect of this novel with much to offer is the dry, slightly cynical approach to life displayed by Thóra. Whether she is tackling the prickly staff and guests of the health spa or handling her problematic family which includes a 16-year old son who is about to make her a grandmother, Thóra is independent, inventive and witty. I suspect it’s no secret to regular readers of this blog that I like my female characters to be strong and interesting and Thóra is a definite favourite. The other characters, of which there are a plethora, are not quite so well developed and in particular I’d like to have seen Matthew do a bit more than tag along with Thóra playing the quirky but largely silent love-interest. That said, the dialogue between the two is terrific and its wholly natural feel is part of the evidence of an excellent, nuanced translation.

My Soul to Take is extremely well-plotted, linking present-day events with those of the past very cleverly and in a way that keeps the reader fully engaged. The book was a however little too long at 450+ pages and I think some of that length might have been saved by the inclusion of an old-fashioned family history chart to prevent the need for several repetitions of the complicated familial relationships involved in the events of the past. In the main though the traditional whodunnit with a pool of suspects who all seem to have hidden secrets is first-rate and the incorporation of a possible ghost and ‘those bloody Nazis who always make an appearance’ add nice touches.

I am a sucker for books that make me laugh at the same time as telling me a great story and so far Sigurdardottir’s series does both. Particularly with regard to its plot I think My Soul to Take is an improvement on its predecessor (which was a very good debut) and I’m very keen to read the third novel, Ashes to Dust, which happily for me has already been released (at least in the UK). A combination of a strong female character, intricate plot and dry humour is to be celebrated, especially when of this quality.

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My Soul to Take has been reviewed at DJs Krimiblog, Euro Crime and Reviewing the Evidence

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My rating 4/5
Translators Bernard Scudder and Anna Yates
Publisher Hodder [this translation 2009, original edition 2006]
ISBN 9780340920664
Length 456 pages
Format trade paperback
Source I bought it

Review: Operation Napoleon by Arnaldur Indriðason

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First published in Iceland in 1999 Operation Napoleon was published for in English just this month. I couldn’t pass it up when I noticed it available as a new release for my eReader.

Just before the end of World War 2 a plane of mysterious origins crashes on the the Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland during a fierce blizzard. Although it is thought to be a German plane the search that is mounted some days later is carried out by the American army which has a base in the country. However only a single wheel is discovered and the search is called off. More than 50 years later satellite images of the glacier seem to indicate the plane’s location and a new search is mounted by the US Army which still has a presence in the country. Several local civilians become unwittingly caught up in the search to find the plane and hide its secrets once and for all, the most notable of whom is a young lawyer called Kirstin whose love of her brother forces her to stand up to some truly nasty individuals.

This stanadlone novel from the author of the Erlendur police procedurals is at heart a fairly standard thriller. There is a big secret that some people will go to any lengths to hide, a few innocent people stumble across the secret’s existence and are unable to extricate themselves from events and then a race to see which side will overcome the myriad of obstacles to achieving their goal which in this case was permanent cover up for one side or survival and exposé for the other. The story certainly stretches the bounds of credibility at some points, especially with respect to Kirstin’s ability to get out a succession of near-death scrapes while around her the body count mounts, but it is by no means as far-fetched as some I have read and its internal logic is pretty sound. It is also well-paced and, particularly in its second half, is brimming with genuine tension and intrigue. The secret, when revealed, is just this side of plausible and is one of those that makes you wonder ‘what if’.

As with Indriðason’s other fiction however there is more to the book than a simple plot as it explores several themes in some depth. The most obvious of these is the complicated relationship between Iceland and the US Army. The reluctance of the Icelandic people to accept the foreign army in their country informs Kirstin’s behaviour towards a former beau, Steve an American, who she turns to for help when she is caught up in the events taking place on Vatnajökull. At a government level there are economic and popularity considerations which compete to be taken into account before action can be taken. Although it’s fairly clear where Indriðason’s heart lies on this issue it is pleasing that he provides a strong character in the form of Steve to display an alternate view to the ‘Americans are evil’ theme.

A theme that doesn’t crop up terribly often in fiction but one Indriðason does seem to be particularly interested in is the relationships between siblings. Here Kirstin only becomes involved in the story and goes well beyond her comfort zone of physical endurance because she fears for the life of her younger brother and as the book progresses we learn more about why she feels so duty-bound to look out for Elias. In addition, one of the Americans who was involved in the very first search for the lost plane turns out to have had a similar reason for maintaining his interest in the search until the present search. There are glimpses too of other ideas that interest Indriðason such as the military hierarchy’s willingness to accept that torture is a legitimate means to an end as long as they can claim deniability (quite insightful given this novel was written long before newspaper headlines about gruesome torture being sanctioned at Gunatanamo Bay) and a hastily explored crack at privacy.

I knew absolutely nothing about this book when I bought it and found myself a bit skeptical when learning it was a thriller involving war-time secrets. However I found it a thoroughly entertaining yarn with the added bonus of more depth than you usually find in a thriller and far fewer explosions (which for me is a good thing).

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Operation Naploeon has been reviewed at Reviewing the Evidence and The View from the Blue House

Earlier this year I reviewed Arnaldur Indriðason’s Hypothermia which remains in hot contention for my favourite book of the year. It’s a very different kind of book to this one!

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My rating 4/5
Translator Victoria Cribb
Publisher Harvill Secker [this translation 2010, original edition 1999]
ISBN 9781846552854
Length 274 pages
Format eBook (ePub)
Source I bought it

Review: Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indriðason

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Prior to this book I’d only read one of Arnaldur Indriðason’s Erlendur series, Jar City which I liked but didn’t love. However, when Hypothermia became available at my local library I thought I’d use it as my first book to count towards the 2010 Scandinavian Challenge being hosted by Amy at The Black Sheep Dances.

A woman is found hanged in her weekend cottage but all indicators point to suicide. Erlendur of the Reykjavik Police must talk to the woman’s husband but it seems to be a matter of routine. At around the same time Erlendur is reminded of one of his earliest cases: the disappearance some 30 years previously of a young man named David whose father is now dying and Erlendur feels obligated to look into the case one last. Although there is no identifiable action to take on either case Erlendur finds them occupying his thoughts and he becomes somewhat obsessed by uncovering the facts relating to each incident.

I’ve been trying for a couple of days but I can’t seem to explain why I found a book in which there’s not a great deal of action as quite as compelling and moving as I did.

As I read the book almost in a single sitting, I fell asleep at about 2:00am with a handful of pages to go and quickly devoured them the next morning, the word that kept popping into my head was yearning. Maria, the woman whose body was found hanged, is yearning so much for her mother who recently died and her father who died many years earlier that she is driven to seek out psychics and mediums. Erlendur too is yearning for a resolution to his own childhood tragedy which saw his only brother disappear forever in a wild storm one night. Erlendur adult daughter forces her estranged parents to talk with each other so that she might know the kind of family life she never had. And what dying father of a long-disappeared young man wouldn’t yearn to know what had happened to a much-loved son?

The way this is all teased out is via a rather simple but effective plot which involves Erlendur talking to the friends, relatives and acquaintances of both Maria and David and slowly piecing together each jigsaw puzzle. He does it without any official warrant so has virtually no assistance from his colleagues but the book is still a procedural of sorts I suppose.

Frozen Lake Þingvellir

Of course it’s impossible for a monolingual person like me to know for certain but I feel, by virtue of its invisibility if nothing else, that the translation is sensitive to the author’s original intent. It is certainly a very readable book in its English form. The sense of place in the book too is strong. Physically this is primarily due to the setting of several key scenes in and around Iceland’s lakes, in particular Lake Thingvellir (when Erlendur and his daughter spend a day driving around to see several lakes I couldn’t help but hit google for some images). Intellectually we see the interconnectedness between people and events that must be a part of life in a country of only 300,000 people and there is an undercurrent of the country’s folklore sitting, however uncomfortably, side by side with things modern.

Hypothermia is without the kind of explosive drama that a lot of crime fiction thrives on but, for me anyway, the subtle drama of these exquisitely depicted, intertwining stories was equally as intriguing. It is sad, though not depressing, thoughtful and ultimately quite beautiful.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My rating 5/5

Translator: Victoria Cribb; Publisher: Harvill Secker [200]; ISBN: 9781846552625; Length 314 pages; Setting: Iceland, present day

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Hypothermia is reviewed beautifully, as always, by Maxine at Euro Crime,

Review: Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

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Title: Last Rituals

Author: Yrsa Sigurdardottier (translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder)

Publisher: Hodder [this translation 2008, original edition 2005]

ISBN: 987-0-340-920633

Length: 423 pages

Genre: Amateur Sleuth

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My rating: 4/5

One-liner: A book about a mutilated body shouldn’t be funny but this one is deliciously so.

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At the University of Iceland the mutilated body of student Harald Guntlieb tumbles onto one of his professors when the door to a small room is opened one morning. Police soon arrest Harald’s friend Dori, who they believe to have been his drug supplier, for the murder. However Harald’s family in Germany are unsatisfied with the investigation and send an investigator they know, Matthew Reich, to Iceland who teams up with a local lawyer, Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, to find what the police might have missed. Together they re-trace the steps Harald took during his research into the history of witchcraft and magic, believing that might have played a role in his death.

When Last Rituals won the ‘what shall I read next’ roulette wheel spin I dove in without even reading the blurb let alone taking another look at the reviews that must have prompted me adding it to the TBR pile in the first place. Consequently I wasn’t anticipating a funny book so the laughs generated by Thóra’s humorous and somewhat cynical internal monologue and her sarcastic bantering with Matthew were a wonderful surprise (and a tribute to the translator as I think linguistic humour must be a difficult thing to get right). Probably because I tend to have a similarly bent view of the world I really appreciated Thóra’s attitude which, though irreverent in some circumstances, never got in the way of her getting things done. She also demonstrated genuine backbone when it came to standing up for her son in the face of overwhelming disapproval and I found myself liking Thóra, and the overall tone of the book, very much.

The plot is a standard whodunit despite the macabre overtones provided by the mutilated body and the research topic chosen by Harald. His small group of friends, all part of a group devoted (at least part-time) to the performance of sorcery, provide a pool of potential suspects although I have to admit I didn’t find these characters quite as believable as the two main characters. However the fact that the case led Thóra and Matthew to discover interesting tidbits about Iceland’s history of dealing with witches and witchcraft was interesting (if a bit complicated at times).

Last Rituals is the author’s first adult novel (she also writes children’s books) and it’s quite a stellar debut. The characters and style are original and the plot is intricate but logical. I’m looking forward to more from Yrsa Sigurdardottier.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Last Rituals is also reviewed at Euro Crime, again at Euro Crime, Reviewing the Evidence and at Aust Crime Fiction