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Silence of the Grave

by Arnaldur Indridason

Publishers Weekly In Indridason's excellent second mystery (after 2005's Jar City), a skeleton, buried for more than 50 years, is uncovered at a building site on the outskirts of Reykjavik. Who is it? How did he or she die? And was it murder? The police wonder, chief among them the tortured, introspective Inspector Erlendur, introduced in Jar City. While an archeologist excavates the burial site, several other narratives unfold: a horrifying story of domestic abuse set during WWII, a search for missing persons that unearths almost-forgotten family secrets involving some of the city's most prominent citizens, and Erlendur's own painful family story (his estranged, drug-addicted daughter is in a coma, after miscarrying her child). All these strands are compelling, but it's the story of the physical and psychological battering of a young mother of three by her husband that resonates most. And the denouement of this astonishingly vivid and subtle novel is unexpected and immensely satisfying. Indridason has won the CWA Golden Dagger Award. Author tour. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Book list Icelandic mysteries hit the U.S. ground running last year with the appearance of Indridason's outstanding Jar City. This equally fine follow-up returns to the theme of buried pain, with the action centering on the discovery of a human bone at a construction site near Reykjavik. Inspector Erlendur Sveinnson is on the case, but the trail, which leads back to World War II, has gone very cold indeed. Erlendur (Icelanders use first names) has a very personal reason for his abiding interest in missing persons, and that--combined with the fact that his drug-abusing daughter is in the hospital in a coma--opens the door for plenty of backstory regarding the detective's troubled history. With a narrative that jumps between the 1940s and the present--without giving away whodunit--the novel generates a sort of emotional claustrophobia, its characters trapped in a world where the pain of the past, though often submerged, is always with us. Indridason has definitely vaulted onto the A-list of Scandinavian crime authors. --Bill Ott Copyright 2006 Booklist

Library Journal A skeleton is unearthed in Reykjavik, Iceland, while Inspector Erlendur uncovers a troubled tale of violence and family shame in the award-winning follow-up to his American debut, Jar City, which won the Nordic Crime Novel Award. Indridason lives in Iceland. Author tour. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal Led by Sweden's Henning Mankell (see below) and Norway's Karin Fossum, Scandinavian mystery writers have become increasingly popular in this country. In the second of an Icelandic series to be translated into English (the first was Jar City), Reykjavik detective Erlendur begins investigating the elderly inhabitants of an area after children find an old human skeleton partially uncovered at a building site. Concurrently, the author tells the story of a woman, horribly abused by her sadistic husband, and her three children living in fear of the father. Yet a third theme involves Erlendur's estranged daughter, drug-addicted and now pregnant, who thrusts herself back into his life. Like the long, cold Scandinavian winters, this novel features much darkness, yet as in the Icelandic sagas the author has studied, there is some hope amidst much pain and suffering. Ably translated, this title won the 2005 British Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger, a controversial choice that forced the CWA to create a separate category for mysteries in translation. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 6/1/06.]-Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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