Seeing the World Through Books

Note: This novel was WINNER of the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel in 2002.  The film of this novel, entitled Myron, was WINNER of the Grand Prix Award as Best Film at the International Film Festival in Valenciennes, France (2008)

“Tragedies, sorrows and death, all carefully classified in computers.  Family stories and stories of individuals.  Stories about me and you…you can call it up whenever you want.  A Jar City for the whole nation.”

Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason here introduces Detective Inspector Erlendur (the Icelandic people do not usually use “last names”) of the Reykjavik Police in this dark and engrossing novel, first translated into English in 2004.  Since then, five more novels in the series have been released in translation, all to enormous acclaim.  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 with a crystal ashtray, he has few clues, except for the unusual message left on the body which says, “I am him.”

Murders are rare in Iceland, and are always attended by enormous publicity.  Holberg, a truck driver, appears to have been without family, and there are few clues regarding his death.  Erlendur, however, discovers the photograph of the headstone of a four-year-old child, who died in 1968, hidden beneath a drawer in Holberg’s apartment.  The child, Audur, died of an unusual brain tumor, and her devastated mother, Kolbrun, committed suicide three years later.  Who took the photo and what, if any, connection it might have had with Holberg is unknown.  Erlendur contacts Elin, the aunt of the dead child, who blames the Reykjavik police for their inaction as a cause of the death of her sister.

As Erlendur investigates Holberg’s murder, he suspects that the child, Audur, was the product of a rape–the rape of Kolbrun.  All evidence points in that direction.  Though Kolbrun had tried to report the rape a few days after it happened, the policeman to whom she reported it, and who interrogated her, led her to understand that he did not believe a word of her report.  Nothing ever came of her agonized testimony.  Additional investigation leads Erlendur to believe that there was at least one other rape by Holberg, and possibly another child, and that there may have been some genetic problem which led to the deaths of these children.

Erlendur, despite his personal problems, is an investigator who cares, and his study of the possible reasons for Holberg’s death is engrossing.  Erlendur’s assistants, as committed as he is, investigate with the same sense of purpose as Erlendur, and as they report their findings, much is made of the extent to which these findings represent the “typical” Icelandic murder, described at various points as “clumsy,” “not complicated,” “squalid, pointless and committed without any attempt to hide it,”  and as generally not leaving “anything behind but mess.”  The investigation suggests that the roots of this murder must be found in history and genetics, and Erlandur finds himself involved with a genetic database which gradually reveals its secrets.

This mystery contains many fascinating twists and turns, and ultimately provides a satisfying ending.  As it progresses, the author reveals a very dark and sometimes bizarre sense of humor (at least I think it is supposed to be humor).  This adds to the atmosphere of the novel, since the reader is allowed to interpret as s/he will, but the weird ironies and bizarre scenes of the novel (exhumations of 30-year-old bodies, excavations into the sewer system, visits to a “jar city” of human body parts), become, on screen, quite different:  everything that has been left to imagination in the novel is  presented in living color in the film.

Both the novel and the film have won innumerable prizes.  The novel has won the Glass Key Award as Best Nordic Crime Novel.  The film, entitled Myron, won the Grand Prix Award as Best Film at the International Film Festival in Valenciennes, France (2008), while the Director Baltasar Kormákur won for Best Director.  It also won the 2008 Audience Award at the Festival du Film Policiers in Liege, Belgium.   Providing many dark and gloomy visions of life in Iceland, the novel is a classic of noir writing, and its film adaptation matches that mood.  The four successors to this novel continue this tone and atmosphere and, according to critics, match this novel in its carefully developed and well executed plot.

Notes: The author’s photo is from his Wiki page here:  http://en.wikipedia.org

The icy photo of Reykjavik is from Trip Advisor.

The grim and graphic trailer for the film of this novel is here:  www.youtube.com.

Also by Arnaldur Indridason:  THE DRAINING LAKE