25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Icelandic noir, September 26, 2008
This review is from: Voices: A Reykjavik Thriller (Reykjav¡k Thriller) (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.....
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Exhausted Already? Let's Hope Not!, September 7, 2009
This review is from: Voices: A Reykjavik Thriller (Reykjav¡k Thriller) (Paperback)
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.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Welcome to Reykjavik, January 26, 2010
This review is from: Voices: A Reykjavik Thriller (Reykjav¡k Thriller) (Paperback)
This is a great book. It engaged my interest from the beginning through the final, 313th, page. It's the fourth Arnaldur Indridason novel that I've read. I would be hard pressed to compare this with the other three. Perhaps there's more contemplation and less action than in the others.
The central story is that of a hotel doorman/handyman who lives in a dingy little room in the hotel basement. About a week before Christmas, dressed as Santa, he is stabbed to death in his room. He was getting ready to serve as Santa at a hotel party.
Leading the police team investigating the murder is Inspector Erlendur, Indridason's star. Erlender does not roam far in this book; he checks into a room at the hotel and uses it as his base. He gets to know several of the hotel employees.
I don't want to say too much more. I don't want to spoil this excellent mystery. The reader learns a lot about the victim, whose life took a pivotal turn when he was twelve, some thirty-six years before his death.
There are many fascinating twists and turns, particularly at the end. Indridason is a master at character development. His prose is stark and powerful.
Highly recommended
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