Voices: An Inspector Erlendur Novel (Reykjavik Thriller) [Paperback]

Arnaldur Indridason (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 2, 2008 | Series: Reykjavik Thriller (Book 3)

Inspector Erlendur Returns In this Award-winning International Bestseller.

The Christmas rush is at its peak in a grand Reykjavík hotel when Inspector Erlendur is called in to investigate a murder. The hotel Santa has been stabbed to death, and Erlendur and his fellow detectives find no shortage of suspects between the hotel staff and the international travelers staying for the holidays. As Christmas Day approaches, Erlendur must deal with his difficult daughter, pursue a possible romantic interest, and untangle a long-buried web of malice and greed to find the murderer. Voices is a brutal, soulful noir from the chilly shores of Iceland.

 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mesmerizing . . . [An] enthralling narrative."--The Wall Street Journal

"Bleakly beautiful."--The New York Times Book Review

“Indridason expertly plies the more familiar waters of the classic mystery. . . . He is a wise, compassionate writer, and this is his wisest, most compassionate book."--Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

"The enthusiasm generated by Indridason's first two novels starring Reykjavík police inspector Erlendur Sveinsson was reminiscent of the buzz that launched Henning Mankeel's Kurt Wallander when he arrived in the United States a decade ago. The third in Indridason's series will add more volume to the word of mouth. . . . A grim but compelling look at how the stranglehold of the past cripples our abilitiy to live in the present."--Booklist

"An exceptional psychological study."--Library Journal

About the Author

Arnaldur Indridason was born in 1961. He worked at an Icelandic newspaper, first as a journalist and then for many years as a film reviewer. He won the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel for both Jar City and Silence of the Grave, and in 2005 Silence of the Grave also won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for best crime novel of the year. Indridason lives in Iceland, and he and J. K. Rowling are the only authors to simultaneously hold the top three spots on the Icelandic bestseller list. His next novel in the series is forthcoming soon from Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312428065
• ISBN-13: 978-0312428068
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Arnaldur Indridason is the author of Jar City, Silence of the Grave, Voices, The Draining Lake, and Arctic Chill. He won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Silence of the Grave and is the only author to win the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel two years in a row, for Jar City and Silence of the Grave. The film of Jar City, now available on DVD from Blockbuster, was Iceland's entry for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and the film of his next book, Silence of the Grave, is currently in production with the same director. His thrillers have sold more than five million copies in over 25 countries around the world. He lives in Iceland.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#32 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#33 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

#32 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Police Procedurals

#33 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Police Procedurals

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Icelandic noir September 26, 2008

By cait VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

It is the week before Christmas and we are in the far north, almost guaranteed a snowy, white holiday. But it you looking for a cozy mystery, perhaps you should look elsewhere, because this book would seem to fall distinctly in the category of 'noir', defined in Merriam-Webster as "crime fiction featuring hard-boiled cynical characters and bleak sleazy settings." Yes, cynical...and yes, bleak...and in "Voices" that is a very enjoyable combination for the reader.

The holidays are approaching, and in the basement of Iceland's very popular Grand Reykjavik Hotel, a body has been found. The victim of the brutal stabbing is the hotel's doorman, discovered half dressed in the suit he was going to wear to play Santa at an employee party. Found with his pants down around his ankles, in a very compromising position, in the nasty, empty little room in which he lived. Called in to investigate is Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson and his team, each with their own very distinct personalities. Erlendur is himself a rather bleak yet compelling character. Divorced for decades, alone, almost a stranger to his two now grown, troubled children, he might seem at first an unlikely sympathetic character. But as with all the folks here, we learn that what we at first see is not all there is to the story.

For example, Erlendur is still haunted by the death of his younger brother when they were both just children, the boy lost forever on a snowy Icelandic moor, while Erlendur was found and saved.

"He was older and was responsible for his sibling. It had always been that way. He had taken care of him. In all their games. When they were home alone. When they were sent off on errands. He had lived up to those expectations. On this occasion he had failed, and perhaps he did not deserve to be saved since his brother had died. He didn't know why he had survived. But he sometimes thought it would have been better if he were the one lying lost on the moor."

That death and his sense of responsibility for it has colored ever aspect of his life since and is perhaps one reason he find himself at an almost total loss as to how to deal with his own daughter Eva Lind, a drug addict, suffering her own guilt over the death of her prematurely born daughter. But it is also why he is so dedicated to his job.
And besides the murder, there is also woven through the book another little subplot of a young boy who has been very severely beaten, maybe by his father. But again, there is more to this than meets the eye at first.
Yes, there is a lot of angst in beautiful, snowy Iceland this Christmas.

While the story and the setting and the writing itself are spare and a bit bleak, the author's great ability to develop these characters, including even the victim, and a glimpse of Icelandic culture, raises what might otherwise be an ordinary police procedural to another level. The third in a series, along with 'Jar City' and 'Silence of the Grave', 'Voices' is a very fine stand alone mystery. I know that I will be going back and reading the previous two and then will catch up on the latest, 'The Draining Lake'.

Now if I could just get the hang of these Icelandic names.....

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Exhausted Already? Let's Hope Not! September 7, 2009

By Giordano Bruno

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Iceland is a nasty place as portrayed in the 'thriller' novels of Arnufur Indridason - gloomy, gritty, petty - and its folk have a taste for drugs, prostitution, and confrontational behavior. If I were the Director of Tourism in Iceland, I tell you, I'd pay Indridason a handsome bonus to write about some other country. This novel Voices, the third in a series featuring Police Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson, is the nastiest yet, with a lurid crime that leads to more and more perverse ugliness. Poor Erlendur is confronting another Christmas, that joyless holiday which he tries to ignore but which inevitably dredges up thoughts of his childhood tragedy. Most of the novel takes place in a hotel -- a tourist destination -- staffed by repulsive and evil-tempered goons. There's a good chance that one of them murdered Santa in flagrante in the hotel basement.

The first two novels in the series - Jar City & Silence of the Grave - were every bit as gritty and sleasy, but some half-concealed humanity in Inspector Erlendur made one empathize with the poor man and care about his agonies with his drug-addled daughter and alienated son. Well... in Voices, I could still squeeze out a little sympathy for Erlendur, but only because by now he's almost a black-sheep uncle. If you haven't read the prvious two novels, I truly doubt you'll get past chapter five of this one. One has to wonder, by the way, why Erlendur hasn't discovered prozac or celexa, in a country where 'drugs' are not unavailable. Is there a cultural prejudice against relief from depression except illegally?

And there's one glaring flaw in the none-too-credible mystery plot. The victim Santa was a boy soprano of great musical promise, whose voice "broke" without any warning in the middle of a showcase concert. After this sudden onslaught of puberty, he never recovered any musical talent. The experience essentially destroyed him and his family. Unfortunately, this is utterly implausible. Boys' voices do change in puberty, and the period of 'transition' can be problematic vocally, but such an instantaneous collapse of all vocal training is absurd. Now I know why lawyers snarl at Perry Mason and other 'courtroom' novels, and doctors smirk at 'hospital' dramas on the tube. Actually, I've never read a novel about musicians that showed much sense of how "we" get through life.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dreaming of a Black Christmas December 10, 2007

By Gary Griffiths TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Voices", the third Icelandic crime mystery written by Arnaldur Indridason and translated by Bernard Scudder, is as dark, brooding, and fatalistic as the two that preceded it.

But hey, if this were Tahiti, they wouldn't call it "Iceland".

And if one were to select a "Mr. Iceland" based on a personality most representative of this barren landscape of volcanoes and endless winter nights, Indridason's irascible police detective Erlander Sveinsson would leave the competition far behind.

In this installment of gloom, it is the Christmas season, and Erlander is called upon to investigate the murder of Gulauger Egilsson, a 50-ish doorman of one of Reykjavik's better hotels, found in his hotel basement room with his Santa Claus suit around his ankles and fatal knife wounds in his chest. What follows would be a rather pedestrian whodunit - a standard crime drama of turning up clues and connecting the dots - were it not for the talented Indridason and his penchant for painting with a palette of despair what could have been a Currier and Ives Scandinavian Holiday card. Unbeknownst to hotel management or staff, the reclusive Gulauger was once a child star - a choirboy of international fame, who at twelve had two records published, destined for fame and the Vienna Boys' Choir. But not content to rely solely on poor Gulanger's sordid tale, the author deftly weaves together parallel threads, each apparently competing to see which can be more depressing. We have Erlander's partner Elinborg chasing down a case of parental child abuse, while his daughter bounces from thoughts of suicide to drug addiction, pining over her complicity in the death of her own infant daughter. And Erlander, his own solitude no longer an effective shield under the tidal waves of grief and murder that surround him, reflects on and nearly confronts his own unresolved guilt following the death of his younger brother decades before. These threads wind tightly together in a tapestry of pain, lurching and stumbling, taking more twists than a pretzel factory in reaching a bitterly ironic, while fitting, climax.

So by now, you're probably wondering how this smörgåsbord of sorrow could rate five stars. The answer is Indridason's prose, the magic of a straightforward and unapologetic slice of life - not the way we'd wish it or the way Hollywood would have us believe it - but the way it is. Depressing - maybe - but there is also strength and nobility in the grit of real people confronting real adversities and struggling, or failing, to simply survive. This is tough stuff, but in its own way powerful and, if not redeeming, certainly memorable. But if all of these psychological mumbo jumbo ramblings of desperation are still putting you off - take heart. For at it's core, "Voices" is simply a darn good mystery wrapped around a cleverly inventive - if sad - plot. So if you want smiley, happy, beautiful people obsessed with fashion trends and trendy relationships, fire up the tube and surf over to the "Friends" re-runs. But if noir served up cold is your midnight snack, let the cagey Mr. Indridason take you on this tour of Iceland you'll never find in the travelogues.