Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A dead man and no clues..apart from a dark past
Tainted Blood
What you need to know before your trail
A man is found murdered in his Reykjavik flat. There are no obvious clues apart from a cryptic note left on the body and a photograph of a young girl’s grave. Detective Erlendur is forced to use all the forensic resources available to find any leads at all. Delving into the dead man’s life he discovers that forty years ago he was accused of an appalling crime. Did his past come back to haunt him? Finally, Erlendur’s search leads him to Iceland’s Genetic Research Centre in order to find the disturbing answers to the mystery
Locations
Reset- Iceland - Rekjavik
- A: Grafarvogur
- B: Gerði
- C: Statistics Iceland
- D: Barónsstígur
- E: University of Iceland
Travel Guide
Reykjavik
How old crimes can create new crimes through the maze of genealogy.
The most fascinating setting in this novel is a Genetic Research Centre, which actually has a base in reality. A centre of this kind would have files and files of medical data on each and every Icelanders, as well as a genealogy database which could trace the heritage of every person back to the Middle Ages.
“They called it establishing the Icelandic genetic pool. The main aim was to discover how hereditary illnesses were transmitted, study them genetically and find ways to cure them, and other diseases if possible. It was said that the homogenous nation and lack of miscegenation made Iceland a living laboratory for genetic research. ”
Dangerous but an exciting setting for a crime novel…
This, in one of the safest countries in the world:
[In Iceland]…violent crime was virtually non-existent. People seemed relaxed about their safety and that of their children to the point where parents left their babies outside and unattended.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: Tainted Blood
Destination: Reykjavik Author/guide: Arnaldur Indridason Departure Time: 2000s
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