Arnaldur Indridason - Hypothermia

review by Malcolm on show 27th Jan
I think Linda chose me to read this because of my avid reading of Nordic Noir – the likes of Steig Larsson, Henning Mankell and more recently Jo Nesbo. In contrast to Nesbo’s Snowman I thoroughly enjoyed this novel – I felt it captured my perceived images of Iceland well, the plot developed nicely and the writing and translation style was easy to read even if people and names were sometimes a little unfamiliar.

Anyway from the back cover:

“One cold autumn night, a woman is found hanging from a beam at her holiday cottage. At first sight, it appears like a straightforward case of suicide; María had never recovered from the death of her mother two years previously and she had a history of depression. But then the friend who found her body approaches Detective Erlendur with a tape of a séance that María attended before her death and his curiosity is aroused… etc.”

That’s from the cover. Of course it turns into a murder investigation and Detective Elendur finds out that Maria was obsessed with seeing her mother in the afterlife and with her Doctor husband’s assistance attempts a near death experience – but unknowingly her husband is having an affair with the Mystic from the séance – and all goes badly wrong for Maria. The author nicely ties up all the loose ends in Erlendur’s investigations, he solves the murder and finds the bodies of the missing boy and girl from the past – but he does not find what happened to his missing brother – I expect he will one day in another of the Reykjavik Murder Mysteries.

I highly recommend this and will certainly be reading more.

Malcolm F. Martland Broadcast on RadioScilly 107.9FM 27 January 2011