terrific Icelander police procedural

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	• Voices: A Thriller (Reykjavik Thriller) Arnaldur Indridason St. Martin's Minotaur, 2007 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 9 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

terrific Icelander police procedural

The grand hotel is loaded with tourists vacationing in Iceland during Christmas. However, the management calls the Reykjavik police to inform them someone murdered their doorman who doubled as Santa Claus. Police inspector Erlendur and Detectives Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg arrive at the crime scene to find in the basement the bludgeoned corpse of Gudlaugur Egilsson; a used condom hangs from his penis.

As saliva is taken from all the guests and employees, the three cops interview everyone, but no one admits knowing the victim outside of the hotel. The hotel manager confesses that he had just fired Gudlaugur, but had no motive to kill him. Erlendur and his companions soon learn that Gudlaugur was a popular soprano as a young boy so the sleuths turn towards his family, whom he was estranged from after an incident with his father left the older Egilsson wheelchair bound. Erlendur personalizes the case as it reminds him of his own family, but diligently continues seeking the motive that will lead to the killer's identity if DNA testing fails to do so.

This terrific Icelander police procedural combines a strong murder investigation with Erlendur's personal crisis as the case is wearing him down. His daughter visits him though everyone assumes she is a hooker he hired, and he considers an affair with a crime scene technician. Readers will appreciate Arnaldur Indridason's fabulous whodunit due to predominately Erlendur (see his previous case SILENCE OF THE GRAVE).

Harriet Klausner

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A Christmas Tale

A few days before Christmas, a murder takes place in the basement of an upscale hotel in Reykjavik. The body of the doorman, who had just been made redundant after 20 years, is found in the small room he was allowed to occupy, stabbed to death with his pants pulled down around his ankles and wearing a condom. The victim had been a famous boy soprano who had made two records and was about to embark on a tour of Scandinavia at the age of 12 when his voice changed, ending his career. Subsequently, he became estranged from his family.

Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson conducts the investigation. Few clues, if any, are apparent. The inspector, facing a bleak Christmas of his own, decides to take a room at the hotel while continuing the probe. There is no shortage of suspects, only clues. Meanwhile, he battles his own ghosts--his survival at the age of 10 from a fierce snowstorm in which his 8-year-old brother disappeared; his abandonment of his wife and two children 20 years previously; his difficult daughter who has just reunited with him (she is a recovering dope addict whose habit resulted in a stillborn daughter).

This excellent translation of the author's third novel is on a par with his earlier books. The language and plot flow smoothly, moving the reader forward effortlessly. Winner of the Gold Dagger Award, the author's previous books were Silence of the Grave and Jar City. I look forward to the fourth book in the series with great anticipation.

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Third time the charm

As with all good noir, the protagonist solves the crime and also solves something about himself. Building on his two earlier works, the third manages to do just that. It is easy to say, hard to do. But Indridason does it deftly, never laying it on too thick, and(unlike the first two books) manages it all with some humor. Erlendur still grieves his brother, lost due to childhood accident years ago, for which he blames himself and feels the guilt that has ruined his life. But he has been complicit in the ruin, a willing voulunteer. He investigates the murder of a man, like him haunted by his childhood. In doing so, he understands more about himself and takes---no matter how slowly, how tenatively---the first steps to forgive himself. A fine work.

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Slowly unraveling murder mystery

Arnaldur Indridason's third translated Icelandic thriller, "Voices", again features Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson who is summoned along with his team Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli to an upscale Reykjavik hotel at the onset of the Christmas holidays. The doorman who doubled as the hotel Santa had been found stabbed while dressed up in his Santa suit apparently having been engaged in a sexual act. The victim Gudlaugur Egilsson had been employed by the hotel for upwards of twenty years yet nobody associated with the hotel claimed to know much about him including his bosses the corpulent hotel manager and the reception manager.

Erlendur and his colleagues had little to go on but were faced with a hotel full of guests both foreign and Icelandic and a shady hotel staff as suspects.

Investigation into the background of the victim produced startling results. Apparently Gudlaugur had been a choirboy and childhood singing prodigy blessed with an angelic soprano voice. So accomplished was he that he cut a pair of records and was planning to go on tour through Scandinavia when his voice disasterously changed owing to puberty. Gudlaugur's life which had been carefully and sternly structured by his domineering father was shattered. His childhood had been robbed, shunning friendships with his schoolmates, stilting his social developement to practice his music. This unfortunate incident lead to him being estranged from his family, a father and sister, for some thirty years.

Gudlaugur had been scheduled to meet with a sleazy, nicotined British record collector Henry Wapshott who specialized in choirboys. Gudlaugur supposedly had a cache of his records worth a fortune on the collecting market, providing a plausible motive.

Indridason studded his plot with many paralleling layers of psychological drama with his characters. Gudlaugur's history commenced introspection by Inspector Erlendur of his own childhood. He had symbolically been robbed of his childhood by guilt associated with the disappearance of his younger 8 year old brother in a raging blizzard in which he survived. His colleague Elinborg was concurrently involved in a case of severe child abuse probably committed by the child's father. I

Erlendur and his crew painstakingly plod through an exhaustive investigation robbing everyone of the Christmas spirit as they finally nail the murderer of the unfortunate former child star.

While not the best I've read by Indridason, "Voices" goes well beyond a standard police procedural infusing a great deal of psychological dilemma among his characters particularly when broaching the subject of child abuse and neglect.

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