Why a Booktrail?
2000s : The sixth book in the Detective Erlendur series and a favourite of the booktrail since it was inspired by real life events.
The Draining Lake (Erlendur 6)
What you need to know before your trail
An earthquake destroys the immediate landscape but leaves one particular path of destruction in its wake – for the water level of a nearby lake drops suddenly due to the natural phenomenon revealing the skeleton of a man half-buried in its sandy bed.
At first the investigation seems gruesome enough as it’s obvious that he’s been there for some time – well before the earthquake took place. And what’s more weird is that he has some kind of communication device attached to the body with Russian writing on it.
Back in the cold War, students could be sent from Iceland to study in East Germany. Could this gruesome discovery have something to do with his?
Travel Guide
Once we found out that this book is based on `a real case – well that of a lake draining away following an earthquake rather than a dead body being found in it – we were intrigued as had never heard of this phenomenon. Quite exciting thing to learn about and the fact that it inspired a novel even more so. with images of Atlantis in our heads, we looked into this and found that the lake Kleifarvatn began draining away in 2000 in the exact way as described in the novel
As well as the mystery of the lake, the real intrigue comes in the form of the Cold War and Iceland’s role in it. Icelandic students would travel to Leipzig, East Germany in the 1950s to study as communists. This historical context is very interesting and gives the novel an added dimension as we had no idea of how Iceland and the icelanders would or might have dealt with the United states and Russia apparently spying in the region.
Gives it a spy thriller sort of feel and added to the murderous chill of the rest of the novel, makes for quite a read!
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information The Draining Lake (Erlendur 6)
Destination: Reykjavik Departure Time: 2000s
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