This was good in the way that all of Indriadson's mysteries are good, but the translation was disappointing. It looks like the regular translator died before this was done, and it shows. Parts of it just seem flat and redundant. There were also a lot of typos and misspellings.
Helpful Score: 1
Ragnarök in Reykjavik, June 19, 2013 By Dr. Frank Stech
In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is the future of events, a saga of a great battle, the deaths of heroes and villains, natural disasters, then the world drowned in watery chaos. Arnaldur Indridason's "Arctic Chill" is the Reykjavik mini-Ragnarök, ending with Iceland encased in ice: "The frost tightened its grip as evening fell, whipped up by the chill Arctic wind that blasted in from the sea and south over the desolate winter landscape. ... The wind howled and shrieked between the buildings and down the empty streets. The city lay lifeless, as if in the grip of a plague."
This fifth of Indridason's Reykjavik murder mysteries begins with Inspector Erlendur and Detectives Elínborg and Sigurdur Óli peering down at the stabbed and bled out body of an lovely immigrant boy from Thailand, frozen into the January ice. "The ground was now covered in a solid coating of ice and the north wind howled and sang around the blocks of flats. Rippling sheets of snow swept along the ground. They collected into little drifts here and there and fine powder snow swirled away from them. Straight from the Arctic, the wind bit their faces and penetrated their clothes, cutting to the bone." The case is as bleak as the opening scene.
As they trail the killers, the Reykjavik murder squad finds more crime, hatred, racism, evil, and man's inhumanity to man, never a pattern, always more evidence of the swirling chaos of Ragnarök's icy future. "'We did it for them,' she said in a low voice. 'For our boys. What they did could never be undone, disgusting and horrible though it was. We had to think of the future. We had to think of their future.' 'But there was no future, was there?' Erlendur said. 'Only this dreadful crime.'"
Inspector Erlendur and his comrades doggedly plow through the snow and ice, finding the clues and trying to understand them, encountering more senseless violence and death. They piece together the answers to the murder mysteries, but in the end, find none to the greater mystery: "Erlendur stood over the grave in the freezing cold, searching for a purpose to the whole business of life and death. As usual he could find no answers. There were no final answers to explain the life-long solitude of the person in the urn, or the death of his brother all those years ago, or why Erlendur was the way he was, and why Elías was stabbed to death. Life was a random mass of unforeseeable coincidences that governed men's fates like a storm that strikes without warning, causing injury and death."
There is nothing warm or cheering in Arnaldur Indridason's "Arctic Chill;" we are in the hands of a hard-hearted and cold-blooded master singer of modern Norse sagas, warning us of murder, evil, and chaos.
In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is the future of events, a saga of a great battle, the deaths of heroes and villains, natural disasters, then the world drowned in watery chaos. Arnaldur Indridason's "Arctic Chill" is the Reykjavik mini-Ragnarök, ending with Iceland encased in ice: "The frost tightened its grip as evening fell, whipped up by the chill Arctic wind that blasted in from the sea and south over the desolate winter landscape. ... The wind howled and shrieked between the buildings and down the empty streets. The city lay lifeless, as if in the grip of a plague."
This fifth of Indridason's Reykjavik murder mysteries begins with Inspector Erlendur and Detectives Elínborg and Sigurdur Óli peering down at the stabbed and bled out body of an lovely immigrant boy from Thailand, frozen into the January ice. "The ground was now covered in a solid coating of ice and the north wind howled and sang around the blocks of flats. Rippling sheets of snow swept along the ground. They collected into little drifts here and there and fine powder snow swirled away from them. Straight from the Arctic, the wind bit their faces and penetrated their clothes, cutting to the bone." The case is as bleak as the opening scene.
As they trail the killers, the Reykjavik murder squad finds more crime, hatred, racism, evil, and man's inhumanity to man, never a pattern, always more evidence of the swirling chaos of Ragnarök's icy future. "'We did it for them,' she said in a low voice. 'For our boys. What they did could never be undone, disgusting and horrible though it was. We had to think of the future. We had to think of their future.' 'But there was no future, was there?' Erlendur said. 'Only this dreadful crime.'"
Inspector Erlendur and his comrades doggedly plow through the snow and ice, finding the clues and trying to understand them, encountering more senseless violence and death. They piece together the answers to the murder mysteries, but in the end, find none to the greater mystery: "Erlendur stood over the grave in the freezing cold, searching for a purpose to the whole business of life and death. As usual he could find no answers. There were no final answers to explain the life-long solitude of the person in the urn, or the death of his brother all those years ago, or why Erlendur was the way he was, and why Elías was stabbed to death. Life was a random mass of unforeseeable coincidences that governed men's fates like a storm that strikes without warning, causing injury and death."
There is nothing warm or cheering in Arnaldur Indridason's "Arctic Chill;" we are in the hands of a hard-hearted and cold-blooded master singer of modern Norse sagas, warning us of murder, evil, and chaos.
Fifth book in the series is a solid, well written story about the murder of a Thai child. Detective Erlendur and his fellow policemen investigate the death and along the way uncover much about racism and immigrants living in Iceland. If you like police procedurals, you will really enjoy this one.
This is the 5th in the series and I was a bit disappointed in the storyline.
That being said it was due to the racial slant on the murder. It was played up so much that you seemed to choke on it and that was all that is story was about.
Seemed a bit disjointed at parts and not as smoothly translated as the others.
That being said it was due to the racial slant on the murder. It was played up so much that you seemed to choke on it and that was all that is story was about.
Seemed a bit disjointed at parts and not as smoothly translated as the others.
Read a little of it. Very Nordic (e.g. depressing and matter of fact). I guess there's no such thing as an Icelandic Carl Hiaasen.
On an icy January day, the Reykjavik police are called to a block of flats where a body has been found in the garden: a young, dark-skinned boy, frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. The discovery of a stab wound in his stomach extinguishes any hope that this was a tragic accident. Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation with little to go on but the news that the boys Thai half-brother is missing. Is he implicated, or simply afraid for his own life? The investigation soon unearths tensions simmering beneath the surface of Icelands outwardly liberal, multicultural society. The boys murder forces Erlendur to confront a tragedy in his own past. Soon, facts are emerging from the snow-filled darkness that are more chilling even than the Arctic night.
I enjoyed this mystery set in Iceland. The possibilities kept me guessing right until the end. I look forward to reading earlier books in this series.
Great book!
