Voices

Not your ordinary, scripted story that is so predictable. I have read this author six times and each time it is an interesting read.

It is the week before Christmas and we are in the far north, almost guaranteed a snowy, white holiday. But it you looking for a cozy mystery, perhaps you should look elsewhere, because this book would seem to fall distinctly in the category of 'noir', defined in Merriam-Webster as "crime fiction featuring hard-boiled cynical characters and bleak sleazy settings." Yes, cynical...and yes, bleak...and in "Voices" that is a very enjoyable combination for the reader. The holidays are approaching, and in the basement of Iceland's very popular Grand Reykjavik Hotel, a body has been found. The victim of the brutal stabbing is the hotel's doorman, discovered half dressed in the suit he was going to wear to play Santa at an employee party. Found with his pants down around his ankles, in a very compromising position, in the nasty, empty little room in which he lived. Called in to investigate is Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson and his team, each with their own very distinct personalities. Erlendur is himself a rather bleak yet compelling character. Divorced for decades, alone, almost a stranger to his two now grown, troubled children, he might seem at first an unlikely sympathetic character. But as with all the folks here, we learn that what we at first see is not all there is to the story. For example, Erlendur is still haunted by the death of his younger brother when they were both just children, the boy lost forever on a snowy Icelandic moor, while Erlendur was found and saved. "He was older and was responsible for his sibling. It had always been that way. He had taken care of him. In all their games. When they were home alone. When they were sent off on errands. He had lived up to those expectations. On this occasion he had failed, and perhaps he did not deserve to be saved since his brother had died. He didn't know why he had survived. But he sometimes thought it would have been better if he were the one lying lost on the moor." That death and his sense of responsibility for it has colored ever aspect of his life since and is perhaps one reason he find himself at an almost total loss as to how to deal with his own daughter Eva Lind, a drug addict, suffering her own guilt over the death of her prematurely born daughter. But it is also why he is so dedicated to his job. And besides the murder, there is also woven through the book another little subplot of a young boy who has been very severely beaten, maybe by his father. But again, there is more to this than meets the eye at first. Yes, there is a lot of angst in beautiful, snowy Iceland this Christmas. While the story and the setting and the writing itself are spare and a bit bleak, the author's great ability to develop these characters, including even the victim, and a glimpse of Icelandic culture, raises what might otherwise be an ordinary police procedural to another level. The third in a series, along with 'Jar City' and 'Silence of the Grave', 'Voices' is a very fine stand alone mystery. I know t

This is the 2nd novel featuring the same team of detectives. Iceland, with only 300,000 people, is blissfully very low on murders, so this story takes place in the past. It is both a great mystery novel and a great history lesson of modern Iceland.

A man has been murdered in a tiny basement room in one of Reykjavik's grandest hotels. A man who's been the doorman/handyman and seasonal Santa Claus at the hotel for years, although no one seems to know much about him. A man with a strange and tragic past. A man who was once, briefly, famous. Erlendur is the detective assigned to the case-- a haunted, brooding man with family problems and unresolved issues from his own past. A man who buries himself in the case and tries to avoid going home, even as Christmas approaches. As he and his colleagues investigate, they find themselves peeling back layer upon layer of sadness and horror, encountering family secrets long buried, and learning more than they ever wanted about themselves as well. Author Arnaldur Indridason is one of Iceland's great contemporary writers, and I'm so glad his work is available in English. He is a brilliant writer who goes deep below the surface to explore the dark corners of human nature. This, then, is far more than a murder mystery, though it's a good one. It is a story about lost innocence, ruined childhood and family secrets and it's brilliantly done. The only problem I had was wrapping my mind around the numerous Icelandic names, but with time I got used to them. I enjoyed Voices immensely and recommend it most highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

"Voices", the third Icelandic crime mystery written by Arnaldur Indridason and translated by Bernard Scudder, is as dark, brooding, and fatalistic as the two that preceded it. But hey, if this were Tahiti, they wouldn't call it "Iceland". And if one were to select a "Mr. Iceland" based on a personality most representative of this barren landscape of volcanoes and endless winter nights, Indridason's irascible police detective Erlander Sveinsson would leave the competition far behind. In this installment of gloom, it is the Christmas season, and Erlander is called upon to investigate the murder of Gulauger Egilsson, a 50-ish doorman of one of Reykjavik's better hotels, found in his hotel basement room with his Santa Claus suit around his ankles and fatal knife wounds in his chest. What follows would be a rather pedestrian whodunit - a standard crime drama of turning up clues and connecting the dots - were it not for the talented Indridason and his penchant for painting with a palette of despair what could have been a Currier and Ives Scandinavian Holiday card. Unbeknownst to hotel management or staff, the reclusive Gulauger was once a child star - a choirboy of international fame, who at twelve had two records published, destined for fame and the Vienna Boys' Choir. But not content to rely solely on poor Gulanger's sordid tale, the author deftly weaves together parallel threads, each apparently competing to see which can be more depressing. We have Erlander's partner Elinborg chasing down a case of parental child abuse, while his daughter bounces from thoughts of suicide to drug addiction, pining over her complicity in the death of her own infant daughter. And Erlander, his own solitude no longer an effective shield under the tidal waves of grief and murder that surround him, reflects on and nearly confronts his own unresolved guilt following the death of his younger brother decades before. These threads wind tightly together in a tapestry of pain, lurching and stumbling, taking more twists than a pretzel factory in reaching a bitterly ironic, while fitting, climax. So by now, you're probably wondering how this smörgåsbord of sorrow could rate five stars. The answer is Indridason's prose, the magic of a straightforward and unapologetic slice of life - not the way we'd wish it or the way Hollywood would have us believe it - but the way it is. Depressing - maybe - but there is also strength and nobility in the grit of real people confronting real adversities and struggling, or failing, to simply survive. This is tough stuff, but in its own way powerful and, if not redeeming, certainly memorable. But if all of these psychological mumbo jumbo ramblings of desperation are still putting you off - take heart. For at it's core, "Voices" is simply a darn good mystery wrapped around a cleverly inventive - if sad - plot. So if you want smiley, happy, beautiful people obsessed with fashion trends and trendy relationships, fire up the tube