The Shadow Killer by Arnaldur Indriðason

Published in Iceland in 2015; published in translation by St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books on May 29, 2018

The Shadow Killer is the second (and, so far, the last) in the Flóvent and Thorson series, following The Shadow District. The story again takes place during World War II. The novel describes the first meeting of Icelander Flóvent and Canadian (of Icelandic parentage) Thorson, so the novel takes place before the events recounted in The Shadow District.

A dead body is found in the apartment of Felix Lundun. The deceased was shot in the head, execution style, and a swastika was marked on his forehead. Felix, a traveling salesman, seems to have disappeared. Flóvent, the only detective in Reykjavik’s Criminal Investigation Division during the war, wonders if he might have been killed by an American, given the relative inexperience that Icelanders have with execution-style murders. The bullet came from a Colt .45, the sidearm carried by American soldiers. Since an American soldier might be involved, Flóvent is teamed with Thorson, who works for the American military police.

Circumstantial evidence, including a cyanide pill, suggests that Felix might be a German spy. Iceland in 1940 was occupied by the British who were trying to keep it out of German hands, while Icelanders were trying to remain studiously neutral. Felix’s father is a Nazi sympathizer but somehow managed to avoid the British purge. His father’s brother claims to have abandoned his interest in the Nazis, while Felix himself is reputed to be an anti-Nazi communist. Thorson has heard a rumor that Churchill might drop in on Iceland, a visit that might be of interest to German spies, if any are lurking about.

Since Felix is the obvious suspect, the reader will immediately understand that he is innocent, at least of killing the man whose body was found in his apartment. Flóvent and Thorson take occasional beatings as they plod forward with their investigation forward. Eventually the plot addresses theories (popular at the time) that criminals share certain physiological features, leading Flóvent to investigate certain Nazi-inspired experiments that were rooted in those theories. Meanwhile, Thorson is investigating the woman who had been living with the murder victim, a two-timer named Vera who seems to have manipulated every man she ever met.

As was true in The Shadow District, the background to the story involves the relationship between Icelandic girls, who are excited to meet foreign soldiers and sailors, and the Morality Committee, comprised of older Icelandic adults who are inclined to lock up Icelandic girls in reform schools if they dare to fraternize with foreign members of the military. Nazi (or in this case, Icelandic Nazi) theories involving racial purity and Nordic/Viking ancestry also contribute to the novel’s background.

That background, in fact, is more interesting than the plot or the primary characters. Naughty Vera at least has a personality, while Thorson and Flóvent might as well be ice sculptures. Their detailed investigation is at times too detailed to make for a riveting story, although The Shadow Killer does allow the reader to join the investigators in puzzling over clues and pondering potential motives. The solution to the mystery comes as no surprise. The story too often drags to warrant a full recommendation, but the background is sufficiently interesting to warrant a guarded recommendation to fans of cold-weather fiction.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indriðason

First published in Iceland in 2013; first published in translation in Great Britain in 2017; published by St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books on November 7, 2017

The Shadow District is the first installment in a series of crime novels by an Icelandic author, Arnaldur Indriðason, who is best known in English for his Detective Erlundson series. The Shadow District is constructed along familiar lines. It tells two parallel stories, one involving a crime investigation in the past, the other involving a renewed interest in the investigation in the present. Indriðason uses that framework to tell an intriguing story of a murder investigation gone wrong, a tragedy that destroys lives in both the past and present.

The story beings with a death of a 90-year-old man in his home in Reykjavik. He appears to have died of old age, but a police investigator isn’t so sure. She wonders why the old man had kept newspaper clippings about a 20-year-old woman whose dead body had been hidden in a pile of rubbish during World War II.

The investigator’s retired colleague, introduced only as Konrád, knows something about the 1944 murder because his con artist father was involved in a séance connected to the death that he remembers as being “disastrous.” The details of the séance are revealed slowly as the story progresses. The killing also makes Konrád think about his father’s unsolved murder.

The World War II story is told in flashbacks that reveal an interesting bit of Icelandic history. The murder victim’s body was discovered by a teenage girl who was secretly messing around with an American soldier, a circumstance so common that shocked Icelanders called it “the Situation” and formed a committee to do something about it. They apparently didn’t want pure Icelandic girls to be tainted by foul Americans. Many older Icelanders apparently viewed the United States (to quote our president) as a “shithole” country, while the younger generation of women were happy to meet men who seemed to offer more excitement than the local farm boys could muster.

Unfortunately for the girl who found the murder victim, her American suitor turned out to have a wife back home in Illinois. Suspicion soon focuses on whether an American might have killed the girl, but the investigation leads in many directions. The two investigators are an Icelandic detective named Flóvent and a Canadian military officer (who has Icelandic roots) named Thorson.

Icelandic folklore also plays an interesting role in the story. Flóvent and Thorson learn that the murder victim had been made pregnant by rape and that her rapist told her to blame the crime on the huldufólk, elves who live in the Icelandic woods. That causes the investigators to wonder whether the victim’s death might be related to the disappearance of another girl in a different part of the country three years earlier. After that woman was raped, she blamed her attack on the huldufólk.

As is common with police officers around the world, the two investigators build a theory on circumstantial evidence and at least one of them develops tunnel vision about proving the theory is correct. Many years later, in the novel’s present, that theory is questioned for reasons that bridge the present to the past.

Indriðason carefully weaves the investigations of the past and present deaths together, letting the reader piece together the clues and decide among the various suspects who may have killed the two women — assuming the huldufólk were not to blame. The story seems to build toward a logical conclusion, then takes a twist, something that all mystery fans appreciate.

Indriðason tells the story in clear prose and gives his characters enough personality to make them believable. The story’s use of Icelandic history and folklore also adds to its interest. But it’s the mystery and the challenge it presents to readers as they piece together clues that makes The Shadow District a promising start to this veteran writer’s new crime series.

RECOMMENDED

Rekjavik Nights by Arnaldur Indriðason

Published in Iceland in 2012; published in translation by Minotaur Books on April 21, 2015

Arnaldur Indriðason wrote a series of novels about Iceland's Inspector Erlendur. Not all of them have been translated into English. He began the series in 1997 and concluded it in 2010, but reprised the character in a new series that focuses on the young Erlendur, before he became an inspector. Rekjavik Nights is the second in the new series.

Kids discover a dead body in a pond. Hannibal, a homeless alcoholic, apparently drowned by accident, but the pond is so shallow that an accidental drowning is vaguely suspicious. A year later, the Reykjavik police have discovered no evidence of wrongdoing, not that they are giving a high priority to a vagrant's death. Erlendur, who encountered Hannibal on his beat from time to time, is troubled by the death, having brushed off Hannibal's complaint that someone tried to set fire to the cellar in which he had been staying.

As a junior traffic officer, Erlendur spends most of his time with domestic disturbances, bar fights, drunk drivers, and traffic accidents. He is not yet a detective but, due to a family tragedy, he has a special interest in cases involving missing persons. Having little else to do (life in Reykjavik seems boring, or maybe it's just Erlendur), he begins to investigate Hannibal's death. Eventually he stumbles upon a tenuous link between Hannibal and a missing woman.

Erlendur is in a relationship of sorts, and it may be time to move it to the next level, or not. That bit of domestic drama adds little to a decidedly undramatic plot. There's no suspense here and the mystery is no better than average. We are given a choice of three of four suspects, misdirection is employed, and the killer is revealed. The reveal is not much of a surprise.

The story moves quickly and Indriðason's translated prose is serviceable, but the characters and plot are just a little dull. Indridason doesn't bring Reykjavik or the characters alive. Fans of the original series might be happy to see the character in his younger days. I am new to Erlendur and would not, on the strength of this novel, go out of my way to read another, but the original series might well be better.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS