Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award

 

Inspector Erlendur returns in this gripping Icelandic thriller. When a skeleton is discovered half-buried in a construction site outside of Reykjavík, Inspector Erlendur finds himself knee-deep in both a crime scene and an archeological dig. Bone by bone, the body is unearthed, and the brutalizing history of a family who lived near the building site comes to light along with it. Was the skeleton a man or a woman, a victim or a killer, and is this a simple case of murder or a long-concealed act of justice? As Erlendur tries to crack this cold case, he must also save his drug-addicted daughter from self destruction and somehow glue his hopelessly fractured family back together.

 

Like the chilly Nordic mysteries of Henning Mankell and Karen Fossum, Arnaldur Indriđason delivers a stark police procedural full of humanity and pathos, a classic noir from a very cold place.

 

“[Indriđason applies] his austere style to a crime of such emotional breadth and sociological complexity that it acquires the sweep and consequence of epic storytelling. … Inspector Erlendur is one of the most compassionate detectives to come this way in a long time.”—The New York Times