Product Description

A man is found murdered in his Reykjav-k flat, and the police have no obvious leads. The man lived alone and had no family, and of his only two friends, one is serving time for an array of petty crimes and psychotic violence, and the other hasn't been heard of for twenty-five years. Erlendur and his colleague Sigurdur -li head the investigation team. They find a computer filled with downloaded pornography, and in a desk, the photograph of a young girl's grave and the cryptic note left behind by the killer. Delving into the dead man's past, they discover that forty years ago he was accused, though not convicted, of rape. Now Erlendur has to follow his instincts when his colleagues are losing faith in the investigation. Foraging into the past, Erlendur discovers that the city of Reykjav-k has one or two secrets of its own, secrets it would rather keep. Jar City is the first in a new and exciting series of crime novels from the land of the saga. A runaway success in Iceland, it cannot fail to leave a lasting impression among readers in England.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #392225 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-03
• Original language: Icelandic
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Arnaldur Indridason was born in 1961, the son of an Icelandic author. Having worked for many years as a journalist and critic for an Icelandic newspaper, he began writing novels. At one week in the summer of 2003, his crime novels occupied the top five spots in the Icelandic bestseller list.

Customer Reviews

Jar City, Arnaldur Indridason
Indridason has amassed quite a collection of credentials even before this, his English language debut, which is sure to bring him even more. This novel won The Glass Key Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of the year when it was published. Very good, but nothing new - so have Henning Mankell, Peter Hoeg and Karin Fossum, among others. However, he also won the same award the following year, with the follow-up to this book, Lady in Green. It was not only the first time any author had ever won two years in a row, but also the first time any author had even won it twice, ever. Indridason also has the accolade of having had, during one week in April 2003, FIVE of his novels on the Icelandic Top Ten Bestseller Lists. He has also been compared to Henning Mankell - which, if true, is going to be very pleasing indeed.

It's not quite of the Mankell class, (then, what is), but Jar City (the title does become clear), is a very good crime novel indeed. It seems clear to me that, right now, the place to look for excellent crime fiction is Europe, for several reasons. One is simply the sense of freshness there is to it all, and the insight into other cultures. Another is the fact that almost all fiction from the continent (or Iceland!) is notably free of clichés of any sort; at least clichés that are held in the English crime writing world. Again, that's all true of this excellent novel, which centres around the investigation into the murder of an elderly man in his Reykjavik flat. He had almost no friends (one of them is in prison, the other disappeared 25 years ago), and he himself was accused of rape many years ago, though the case was dismissed due to a lack of evidence. Although he was guilty. The only clues that the investigators find are a photograph of a young girl's grave, and a cryptic note left by the killer.

I enjoyed this book very much indeed, for many reasons. The plot is absolutely terrific, first of all. It's new, it moves nice and briskly (Indridason's excellent at moving the plot along), it's enigmatic and puzzling, and most of all there are sections of it that are very moving indeed. Jar City, as others have pointed out, is very sad at times, rather desolate and affecting. Which is a good thing, of course. It's also written excellently, with a very spare style - there's not a loose or unnecessary word. At times, coupled with the fact that it moves quickly (and is a pretty short book anyway), you may get the sense at times that the plot's a little underdeveloped in patches, but by the end this certainly isn't so. For such a slim, well-paced, sparely written novel, the plot becomes rather surprisingly, and satisfyingly complex (not, however, complicated - it never becomes convoluted, just important, and twisty.)

As I say, I enjoyed it tremendously and would recommend it to all crime fans, especially those that have already discovered the delights of European fiction, and Mankell in particular. It's excellent. Now I shall begin the wait for a second novel next year.

Solid Series Debut
One of my major problems with many police procedurals is that the plots often go completely off the deep end and become wildly improbable messes (among Scandinavian authors, I think Henning Mankell is frequently guilty of this). So, it's somewhat refreshing to come across a relatively straightforward story like this award-winning series debut from Iceland. In it, we are introduced to Detective Inspector Erlendur, a classic 50ish, divorced, rumpled, morose, tactless, and running-to-seed character who nonetheless possesses the requisite instinct to be a top detective. Although he lacks some of the perfunctory traits often assigned to such characters (for example, he isn't a gourmand, or jazz aficionado, or anything like that), he's very much in the mold of Sejer, Rebus, Resnick, and other such policemen protagonists.

We meet Erlendur as he is called in to investigate the apparent murder of an elderly man in Reykjavik. It doesn't take long for the police to discover that the old man was a nasty character who had been accused of rape almost 40 years ago. With little to go on, other than the possibility that it was a random break-in gone wrong, Erlendur leads his team deep into the past, to try and uncover who might have had a motive for killing the old man. The further they dig, the more nasty secrets they uncover, and the more they must engage in very uncomfortable interviews that dredge up hidden pain. The plot and solution hinge on an aspect of Icelandic society that is rather unique, and it's nice to see the author taking advantage of this to good effect. Another subplot (which is rather extraneous) involves a runaway bride, and meanwhile, Erlendur must also try to deal with his drug addict daughter who flits in and out of his life. Their relationship is quite interesting, and possibly the most compelling reason to seek out the next book in the series (Silence of the Grave).

In terms of supporting characters, Erlendur's two main colleagues fail to leave much of an impression: there's the yuppie Sigurdur Óli, and Elínborg, whose main trait is that she's a woman. Hopefully they will be developed a good deal more in subsequent books, as will Erlendur's mysterious mentor Marion. Having been to Iceland for a few days several years ago, I certainly recognized the bleak weather and its constant presence in the lives of the characters. However, it would have been nice to get a little more description of Reykjavik, which is a very interesting looking place, and its people. There's not a lot of local color, and the result is a setting that is at times rather anonymous. The overall tone of the book is somewhat sad and bleak. Overall, an solid and interesting debut, but not anything that's going to blow you away.

The death of a beast
Inspector Erlendur has to solve the murder of an elderly man, Holberg, who is found in his house with his skull smashed in. During the investigation it becomes more and more clear that Holberg was a real beast and that his past has finally caught up with him. His search leads Erlendur through pouring Icelandic autumn rains via rapes, heartless policemen, illegal children and past murder to a solution that has everything to do with the present. And meanwhile he has chest pains and tries to convince his daughter Eva Lind that she should stay off drugs.

A book I read in one go, a skillful mixture of a detective novel and literature.