Why a Booktrail?
2000s – Reykjavik is well and truly placed on the literary map with this series from a former journalist
Jar City
What you need to know before your trail
A lonely old man is found murdered in his Reykjavík flat. Alongside his body is a rather cryptic note left by the murderer as well as the photograph of a young girl’s grave.
Inspector Erlendur, has to decipher what all this means. Could it have something to do with the fact that the dead man once was accused of a rape many years earlier? Although he was never convicted, could his past have finally caught up with him?
Travel Guide
Bleak landscape, bleak characters, bleak story. A well written story nonetheless with a grim situation unfolding in a land where it always seems to be raining!
As Erlendur is called in to investigate the apparent murder of an elderly man in Reykjavik, there is a lot more to the situation that meets the eye, and so he starts to investigate deep into this man’s past as well as the motives for killing him. Painful interviews and even more painful reminders are revealed and the Icelandic way of keeping secrets and hiding shame proves to be a hard shell to crack.
Arnaldur appears to write for Icelanders – ie excellent and complex characters and a very real, raw and authentic Icelandic cultural and physical setting. The landscape adds to the uniqueness of day to day events such as when a car nearly skids into a “lava field”. Not something you come across in central London let’s say.
The genetics environment is also heavily featured here and explains how Iceland is like a big genetic experiment since it is largely monocultural with a small population. Interesting!
Booktrailer Review
Bleak landscape, bleak characters, bleak story. A well written story nonetheless with a grim situation unfolding in a land where it always seems to be raining!
As Erlendur is called in to investigate the apparent murder of an elderly man in Reykjavik, there is a lot more to the situation that meets the eye, and so he starts to investigate deep into this man’s past as well as the motives for killing him. Painful interviews and even more painful reminders are revealed and the Icelandic way of keeping secrets and hiding shame proves to be a hard shell to crack.
Arnaldur appears to write for Icelanders – ie excellent and complex characters and a very real, raw and authentic Icelandic cultural and physical setting. The landscape adds to the uniqueness of day to day events such as when a car nearly skids into a “lava field”. Not something you come across in central London let’s say.
The genetics environment is also heavily featured here and explains how Iceland is like a big genetic experiment since it is largely monocultural with a small population. Interesting!
Where Next?
