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“Jesus,” Henry said. “A murder!”
“You have murders in Iceland?” his wife, Cindy [...] asked, glancing over at the Icelandair brochure on the bedside table.
“Rarely,” he said, trying to smile.
(excerpted from Voices)

I didn’t expect to get so wrapped up in a series of murder mysteries. There has to be some secret to this one because I rarely read when I cook, and Arnaldur Indridason’s books made me do just so. The main characters, three detectives from the Reykjavik police, are too different to stick together in the world outside the investigations they lead. The lives of Erlendur, the senior detective, perfectly bred and American-educated Sigurdur Oli, and the amazing cook and housewife Elinborg would have never met if Iceland didn’t have truly mysterious criminal cases popping up now and then. In some strange way those murders remind me of (please, don’t laugh) those wooden matreshka dolls — you open it and there is a new one sitting inside, which contains yet another one, and another one, and so on until you have found the tiniest, the very last little doll. I would say that’s a different plot recipe from a usual missing puzzle piece-type paperback thriller.

Every character you meet in these pages has something to disguise be it a drug-addicted daughter, a bossy girlfriend, or a friend’s skeleton under the floor. You can never guess. All kinds of tragedies get unearthed, sometimes in the most literal sense, all of them almost hopeless cases which would have probably bored your average detective to death. Erlendur is not your average detective though. He has a somewhat personal interest in the traceless disappearances which makes him extremely persistent in finding answers. That stubbornness, along with his dry and dark, but absolutely great sense of humor drives his colleagues insane, and makes the reader want to follow his every step through the intriguing gloom of his cases.

One bit of strong advice — before you get glued down to any of the author’s other books,  Jar City, Silence of the Grave, or Voices, do take a look at the breathtakingly beautiful, stunning landscapes of that small and far away country. Also, a little bit of pictures illustrating constantly flowing and evolving Icelandic culture, taken from our new arrival Project: Iceland will definitely help to visualise a lot of the scenes from the book.

Read more: Arnaldur Indridason, Book Reviews, Fiction, Iceland, Reykjavik, Scandinavia


Nastia was born in Russia, and probably that's the reason why she is so inexplicably attracted to the coldest parts of the world, such as Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Alaska and Canada. The more it snows out there - the better. Although would she be even thinking about all that cold if she hadn't first enjoyed Turkey, Bulgaria and Ukraine?

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