I've read a few Scandinavian crime books by an author who
has won the Nordic Crime Novel Prize two years running as
well as the CWA Gold Dagger Award for the top crime novel
of the year. Arnaldur Indridason depicts a bleak life in
modern Iceland, full of cold, dark and ice. Crime occurs
just like anywhere, and while much of it may be caused by
winter-induced
drunkenness, murders are usually personal.
THE SHADOW DISTRICT begins when an elderly man is found
dead in his bed, not entirely surprising. The case isn't
treated as suspicious but a routine autopsy of Stefan
Thordarson uncovers something odd. The man had been killed.
This case does not go to police inspector Erlendur, the
central figure in many previous books, but a female officer
called Marta who discusses it with her retired detective
pal Konrad. Checking the old man's belongings uncovers old
newspaper clippings about Rosamunda, a young woman who was
found murdered during WW2, when British soldiers and
American GIs had been stationed in Iceland.
We return to Reykjavik in 1944 when Ingiborg, a young woman
whose parents have forbidden her to fraternise with
soldiers, stumbles upon the murdered woman behind the
National Theatre. But she is there with her GI boyfriend,
and they leave, hoping nobody has seen them. Everyone knows
everyone, however, and soon the military police call to her
door. Thus we get an insight into investigations of the
past, with a local detective co-operating with an Icelandic-
descended Canadian MP, trying to avoid red tape.
The contemporary murder reawakens the cold case, but are
the deaths in fact connected? Investigations by Konrad
allow us a glimpse into Icelandic life, with a breakfast
consisting of porridge, liver sausage and rye bread. We
also learn about the folk tales told by the farming people;
a student calls them a mirror of society. Relationships
were strained with the influx of foreign servicemen, some
of whom took advantage of women; other women found new work
and prospered. And THE SHADOW DISTRICT was largely
residential, some of it good, some slums, with the Theatre
at one end and the meat packing district at the other. This
is a good allusion to respectability declining unseen
behind a frontage. Arnaldur Indridason has woven a masterly
web of lies, tragedies and societal change in his latest
work; Iceland has seldom seemed so close to home.
A deeply compassionate story of old crimes and their
consequences, The Shadow District is the first in a
thrilling new series by internationally bestselling author
Arnaldur Indridason.
THE PAST
In wartime Reykjavik, Iceland, a young woman is found
strangled in 'the shadow district', a rough and dangerous
area of the city. An Icelandic detective and a member of the
American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer.
THE PRESENT
A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered
with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored
with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings reporting the WWII
shadow district murder in the dead man’s home. It’s a crime
that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighborhood.
A MISSING LINK
Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did
the police arrest the wrong man? Will Konrad's link to the
past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of
WWII Reykjavik to rest?
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