In the fourth of the Inspector Erlender series, author Arnaldur Indridasson creates a challenging and thought-provoking mystery by revisiting the political complexities of Iceland during the height of the Cold War in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, many Icelandic young people were resentful of the US presence and its huge naval air station in Keflavik, accusing the US of “spreading filth.” While the US and NATO were using this base for strategic defense against possible USSR aggression, many students, often from poor families, were accepting the chance to study in East Germany at the University of Leipzig, then returning home with their socialist and communist messages. For Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson, busy solving contemporary crimes, this past history has not had any immediate importance, but when an earthquake leads to the unexpected draining of Lake Kleifarvatn through fissures in the crust beneath it, a skeleton, weighed down with a Russian transmitter, emerges from the depths, a large hole in its skull. With no other evidence available, Erlendur’s only hope of identifying the remains rests with his investigation of missing persons from the late 1970s and 1980s, at least one of them a former student.
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Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason introduces Detective Inspector Erlendur (the Icelandic people do not usually use “last names”) of the Reykjavik Police here in this dark and engrossing novel, first translated into English in 2004. Erlendur, fiftyish and divorced for twenty years, with almost no contact with his ex-wife, tries to maintain contact with his children, his daughter Eva Lind, an actress and active drug addict, and his son Sindri Snaer, who has recently been released from drug rehab for the third time. Called to investigate the death of a sixty-nine-year-old man named Holberg, who has been murdered, he has few clues, except for the unusual message left on the body which says, “I am him.” Investigation leads Erlendur to believe that there were at least two rapes by Holberg, and possibly two children, and that there may have been some genetic problem which led to the deaths of these children and (for those children who survived childhood) their progeny. The novel has won the Glass Key Award as Best Nordic Crime Novel. The film, entitled Miron, won the Grand Prix Award as Best Film at the International Film Festival in Valenciennes, France (2008),
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In 1942, when the American army builds an air base near the small town of Strandvik, Iceland, less than a hundred kilometers from the Arctic Circle, the whole local culture comes under siege. Isolated, even from other Icelanders, the community consists predominantly of fishermen whose wives assume a variety of low-paying jobs to make ends meet, and there is little opportunity for young people to explore alternatives to this life. When the Americans invite only the women of the community to a Big Band Bash, the women dress to look like American movie stars and expect an evening on a par with a Hollywood event. The men, however, are left out and understandably resentful.
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The true story of a successful Icelandic businessman, husband, and father who ran away to become a butler in a foreign country is Olafsson’s inspiration for this novel of guilt and its relentless grip on a man’s psyche in the aftermath of his “escape” from home. Christian (formerly Kristjan) Benediktsson, the seriously flawed main character, has been the butler to William Randolph Hearst for sixteen years when the novel opens in 1937, at Hearst’s famed castle, San Simeon. Though conscientious and proud that he has never had to spend a single night in the servants’ quarters, Christian tells us in the opening pages that he is haunted by ghosts of the past. A soft breeze can, at unexpected moments, cause him to imagine someone breathing on his neck: “Klara, is that you again?” he whispers, unexpectedly, while working on the guest list for one of Hearst’s costume balls. The past has invaded his consciousness.
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