Globe Corner Blogs

Voices --by Arnaldur Indridason

“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.

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