Nordic atmosphere makes this well-written procedural special

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	• Jar City: A Reykjavik Thriller Arnaldur Indridason Picador, 2005 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 33 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Nordic atmosphere makes this well-written procedural special

Award winning Icelandic author Indridason makes a compelling American debut with this first in a series featuring Reykjavik police Inspector Erlendur, a long-divorced loner who smokes too much, doesn't take care of himself, and worries about his angry, drug-addicted daughter.

Murders don't happen much in Iceland and when they do, the solution is usually obvious. So when an old man is found with his head bashed in in his basement flat, a blood-covered heavy glass ashtray on the floor, and the flat door left open, Erlendur's team assumes it's a break-in gone awry. But Erlendur fastens on the cryptic note left on Holberg's body.

As he digs into the murdered man's background, he discovers a rape, a dead child, a suicide. Holberg was a perpetrator before he was a victim. More unsavory details come to light as Erlendur pursues the case across the country and into the past. His team, baffled by the unexplained tasks he sets them, begins to lose patience, though they keep their rebellion to a muttering. The case grows deep roots, which spread into the police force and the very foundations of Icelandic society.

Quiet, morose, dryly witty Erlendur makes a fine, complex companion. His floundering efforts to save his daughter range from rage to pity, all rooted in self-condemnation, and his shock over various revelations in the case is curiously refreshing. The Icelandic setting - from the endless bone-chilling autumn rain and growing darkness, to the inevitable insularity of a population that doesn't even use surnames - is vividly realized.

Those who enjoy Karin Fossum, Henning Mankell or Janwillem van de Wettering will welcome this new series.

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Good, but flawed . . .

I am a big fan of Scandinavian literature. So I was very excited to read Jar City - I had heard a lot of good things about it. The story is great, with lots of great Icelandic atmosphere and a very real and interesting protagonist. My complaint, however, is with the translation. It was obviously translated by an Englishman, and is full of British slang. Hardly a page goes by without reading a British-ism. Now, I have nothing against that in a British book, but it is rather disconcerting and a bit off-putting to read that our Icelanders are saying things like "He's a bloody nutter," "He's daft," or "That's bollocks." But if you as a reader don't mind, this book is recommended.

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an unexpected gem...

While I didn't have the same problems that one of the previous reviewers had -- the British phrases -- I did find "Jar City" to be a little slow going at first. Fortunately, things did begin to pick up about half way through, and I found myself being both fascinated (how different from the British police procedurals I'm used to) and completely absorbed by what was going on between the pages.

When 70-something year old recluse, Holberg, is found murdered in his apartment, the assumption is that the old man was murdered by a drugged out thief. But Detective Inspector Erlendur is not so sure -- esp when a message is found on Holberg, pointing to the fact that Holberg's murder was a personal one. In spite of his two fellow detectives' skepticism (murders in Iceland always have uncomplicated motives), Erlendur decides to follow his instincts. Instincts which prove sound when the detectives discovers that Holberg was once accused of rape more than 25 years ago...

As I have already noted, "Jar City" has a bit of a slowishly start. But about a little less than halfway through the book, things do pick up -- the pacing becomes more swift and taut as the storyline begins to take on a more solid shape and motives and suspects come in thick and fast. Lending a certain air of austerity to everything is the author's (or indeed the translator's) precise and spare prose style and the vividly cold and icy depiction of Reykjavik. "Jar City" will be quite a different experience for mystery buffs more used to the British and American styles of police procedurals. This particular Inspector Erlendur (who brings to mind Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus) installment, for instance, was rather straightforward with few jaw dropping plot twists. However, it also proved to be quite an absorbing and interesting read, and was, in spite of the uncomplicated plot, it was also a rather suspenseful read. So that on the whole, I'd rate it as a worthwhile read, and I will be looking forward to the next Inspector Erlendur mystery novel.

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, page 7

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