Customer Reviews

Arctic Chill: A Thriller

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Before I explain my reservations about purchasing the hardcover version of Arctic Chill, published by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group, let me say how much I enjoy reading Arnaldur Indridason's stories. Saying that, I must add that my reading pleasure has been disrupted significantly by the book's poor copyediting. Before completing the first 100 pages, I discovered numerous misspelled words, including versions of "devastated," "jeans," "children," and "that." There are nonsensical sentences, such as "This is can't be happening" and "There was a pool of blood underneath him that froze more or less directly it formed." I cannot recall ever reading a text so carelessly assembled. I thought other readers should be prepared should they decide to purchase the book.

Racial tension and immigration loom large in Indridason's Icelandic thriller. The intrepid and cerebral Erlendur Sveinsson returns with his crack, if frustrating detectives Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg, this time to investigate the shocking murder of a ten-year-old immigrant boy, Elias, who was brutally stabbed and left to die on the street. Indridason's work always carries the fascinating combination of Icelandic culture and deliberative police protocol, a mix of crime and the personal details that make Erlendur such a compelling protagonist.

In Arctic Chill, even while religiously attending to his investigations, Erlendur frequently ruminates of his personal life, a new relationship in his maturity, a drug-addicted daughter and the recurring memories of a tragic childhood accident that took the life of Erlendur's younger brother. Perhaps it is Elias's brutal death that prompts these memories, especially when the boy's older brother, Niran, fifteen, cannot be located, adding to the anguish of a distraught mother. Sunee, a Thai, has sought a better life for her boys in Reykjavik, even though her marriage to an Icelander has failed. Erlendur and his team work against time to find the missing boy and discover Elias's murderer. To that end, their interviews reveal a troubling level of rancor toward immigrants at Elias's school, both from students and teachers. But whose rage spilled over to allow the stabbing of an innocent young boy?

Once Niran is found quaking in a basement, that very question leads Sunee to spirit the teenager away, making it impossible for the police to interview the boy or learn what may have provoked his brother's murder. While focusing on Elias's death and what the older brother knows but will not divulge to police, Erlendur is haunted by another case yet to be resolved, a report of a missing woman. The more he learns about the missing woman's husband's background, the more the detective is convinced of foul play. But a series of phone calls throws him off track. Mistakes are made, Erlendur doubting his own instincts as a detective.

Indridason writes of contemporary Iceland touched by the same volatile concerns as other countries in the EU, where the identity of place is threatened by an influx of immigrants either seeking employment or asylum. Sunee's distrust of the police exemplifies the immigrants' tentative relationships to authorities and the deep-seated fears of those who are intimidated by an unfriendly environment. In fact, Erlendur exhibits an extraordinary amount of patience and consideration for Sunee's behavior, attending to his investigation as Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg deliver critical pieces of information that lead to a disturbing discovery of motive and murderer. Solid investigative police work and an intriguing personality make Erlendur a character that never disappoints, always surprises. Luan Gaines/2009.

I adore Indridason's police prodcedurals and when I read Bernard Scudder's obituary, I knew we were in for some changes. Oy. I had no idea. This is a pretty good story, maybe not as good as Voices, Silence of the Grave or Jar City, but still pretty interesting. But I shouldn't be reading a book with a pen in my hand, making corrections. They couldn't afford a copyeditor for a best-selling author? Spelling, grammar, punctuation mistakes galore. On practically every page. And I have to admit, I very often stumbled over the language, which never happened before, indicating that the translation may not have been up to snuff. I don't know who to blame, but I know this. Indridason deserves better.

I hope somebody from the publisher is reading this. They should be ashamed.

The other reviews here, to date, are fair. I would add that the book is dedicated to the memory of Bernard Scudder, the translator into English of his previous books. This book was also translated by Bernard Scudder along with Victoria Cribb. So it would appear that Scudder passed away in the course of translating this book. This loss may explain some of the typos and other sentence problems identified by other reviewers. Overall, I enjoyed this book, but I agree that it will be appreciated more by Erlendur fans than by readers new to Indridason. The preaching on multiculturism by some characters may strike US readers as simplistic, but the author avoids simplistic "statements" in his resolution of the murder at the heart of the story. This is not his best book, but it is well worth reading, especially for Erlendur fans. I will miss Scudder's translations.

I agree with all the previous reviewers on disastrous editing. The publishing house should be ashamed of itself for such a horrendous job. But even great translation would not salvage this book. The characters are glum and indistinguishable, even when you memorize Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli (males) and Elinborg (female), and numerous other ethnic names. When couple of characters met they always discuss the same issues time and time again about ethnic problems, the horrible crime, how the mother feels about the death of a child, etc, etc. When they are (the characters) alone, they still ruminate on the subject. We did not see any traces of clever thinking or any smart detecting work, only endless smoking, gazing into the darkness, talking on the cells phones (again, to express how horrible the crime was and who could have done such a thing).
Don't waste time or money on this book.

This is the weakest of the Indridason novels, with brutally slow pacing and long, drawn-out conversations that could have been heavily edited. The translation is especially tedious and the text is riddled with typographical errors. I have very much enjoyed the other Erlendur mysteries, especially "Silence of the Grave," and I look forward to Indridason's return to form (and a better translation and text).

Arnuldur Indridasons' 5th mystery tackles the ugly issue of race, as a 10 year-old Thai immigrant is found murdered near his school. As Erlendur, Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg seek to find witnesses and discover a motive for the crime, ugly truths about Iceland (and, I would venture, about Europe's attitudes towards foreign immigration in general) are revealed. Indridason reminds us repeatedly in his stories that Iceland is a small island. It is also tremendously homogenous. (Other than Japan, I can't think of a more homogenous place.) Immigrants, therefore are not always welcome - an all too familiar theme for us Americans, but an issue rarely addressed in Europe. To expose this ugliness in such a raw and unvarnished fashion and to address this uncomfortable truth takes tremendous courage on the author's part. I am impressed.

As with his other mysteries, there is an intertwining of the personal and professional in the story - this time focusing on Sigurdur Oli and his partner, Begthora (God, but I love these Icelandic names!) and their decision to adopt or not - recognizing that if they choose to adopt, their child will undoubtedly come from East Asia or India, with the resulting social stigma accompanying that choice. The crime itself is interesting, but the larger questions and themes, and the way his characters wrestle with them are the real gems here. _Arctic Chill_ is vintage Indridason; his style will keep me coming back to read more by him. Recommended.

As a 35 year fan of foreign and domestic police procedurals, Indridason has moved to THE TOP of my list. If you like Mankell, Steig, Wahloo and Schowall(SP?) find this series. You will be hooked.
Yes there are some misspelling but its ridiculous to let this bother you...like dust on a Rembrant, the genius shines through.

"Arctic Chill" is an unhappy story, concerning as it does the death of a young and promising child and the problems of race relations in the tiny and formerly homogeneous nation of Iceland. It examines two parallel stories of pairs of young brothers, one living, one dead. It deals with the terrible grief of losing children, and the fear that living children can be lost in other ways.

It is impossible to evaluate this book without mentioning the translation, which is just terrible. Bernard Scudder, a scholar of Icelandic, translated the previous "Reyjavik" novels, and, sadly, he passed away at the age of 53 in October of 2007. This novel, in the event somewhat ironically, is dedicated to him. He is also listed as co-translator with Victoria Cribb. (Ms. Cribb at least appears to be well-credentialed as a translator.) What was the nature of Mr. Scudder's contribution to the translation of "Chill," and the nature of his partnership with Ms. Cribb can only be guessed. But given the exceedingly awkward and clunky translation of this novel, I will speculate that Ms. Cribb is not at all the artist Mr. Scudder was. Clumsy sentences smash together on every page, giving the novel, which might have been at least as good as its predecessors, an opaque and closed feeling that greatly reduces enjoyment.

Don't read this novel first if you haven't read any of the preceding "Reykjavik" series, a mistake I made. The earlier books are well worth exploring, as I have found. (I should note that Ms. Cribb has also translated "Hypothermia," also in this series, and a book I have not as yet read.) This one may only be worthwhile if you are committed to finding out more personal information about some of the continuing characters.

Erlendur, currently my favorite cop (and until the next possible outing of Arkady Renko for the time being the only one that interests me), searches, again, for the purpose of this whole business of life and death. As usual he can find no answers. Life is a random mass of unforeseeable coincidences that govern man's fate.

In this 5th volume of the series, the main case is the murder of a 10 y old boy of partly Thai origin. He got stabbed on a winter afternoon on the way home from school. We follow police work in a maze of assumptions: racism? Kids gangs? Drugs related? A pedophile in the neighborhood?
In parallel, Erlendur has another missing person case, which does not take as much time as the dead boy, but distracts him to the extent of interference. (Can a relationship flourish that started by both partners cheating former spouses? No conclusive evidence that none can ever, but this one can't.)

We learn something about the specific Icelandic situation with immigration. The school of the story has just 30 foreign kids. That's negligible in comparison to many other European countries. The related problems seem small scale as well. The immigration level is given as 10%, which is also relatively low, and hence the reaction to it, the racist and nationalist noise, is also rather low. All this will give readers from the UK or France or Germany a feeling of `no big deal'. The real integration issue in most of Europe, religion, is not even mentioned.
All this gives the book a touch of being behind its time on big issues.

The police work here is also not on its most exciting level. One might find it a bit slow and undirected. As much as I like Erlendur (and I definitely recommend volume 6 strongly), this volume 5 is among the weaker ones so far. (And there is no bonus for proper political thinking in literature.) This would not be a good one to start the series with.