Somehow exactly what I was looking for, which’ll get top marks from me every time. Def planning on reading more Nordic noir. ( )

J'ai beaucoup aimé ce petit polar qui revient aux sources: une mort, un secret et une enquête simple. Au lieu de rebondissements à n'en plus finir, des pièges et des détours, au contraire, le roman avance au rythme d'Ari grâce à qui on découvre la vie de village en Islande. Le charme de ce roman est autant son cadre et les relations des personnages entre eux que l'intrigue telle quelle.
Fait intéressant, Jonasson a tellement apprécié l'accueil de son oeuvre en France que ce livre est paru en français dans sa traduction avant sa langue d'origine! ( )

Easter is approaching when a girl's body is found near a house in the main street. At first she seems to have fallen from a first floor balcony but there are no witnesses. And then the balcony has only her fingerprints, and the owner is away in Reyjavik, and the conclusion is that the girl must have jumped. Her mother is understandably distraught and her father flies in from America. Both seem convinced that she was pushed, and they in turn push Ari Thor to investigate the incident thoroughly.

His girlfriend and young son arrive from Sweden for the weekend, and Ari Thor is determined to give them as much time as he can. He gives them his house and stays in the local hotel. There are aspects of this case that are unsettling and on closer attention he unearths some disturbing ideas.

In the long run Ari Thor discovers another murder, one that others had accepted as a natural death.

I find it hard to put a finger on what is different about Icelandic writing. I think Jonasson's style is deceptively simple, and it is not just the effect of the text having been translated. ( )

Best for:
Fans of Icelandic crime fiction.

In a nutshell:
A young woman is found dead on a sidewalk, apparently having jumped from the balcony of a home. Or did she?

Worth quoting:
N/A. I just raced through the book.

Why I chose it:
Four years ago I picked up the first in the Dark Iceland series at the Iceland Airport. I immediately tracked down the rest of the books, and then read what I thought was the final (fifth) book. In a bookstore this weekend, I wandered over to the J section in Crime and saw there was a sixth!

Review:
I enjoy these books. They aren’t formulaic but they aren’t totally absurd either. Yes, there are often twists, and sometimes they are ones that I didn’t see coming, but also that are specific enough that it might be hard for anyone to see coming. That said, I always find them interesting.

Ari has gone from a new officer in the first book to the Inspector in charge of police in the town in the final one. We’ve followed his relationships and the birth of his son. He’s not the most complicated person, but he is interesting enough. The star of these books, however, is the way Jónasson writes about small town Iceland. Even in the spring, there’s a sense of claustrophobia, but not in a bad way. The people are mostly pretty typical, but they also all know each other, which makes keeping secrets a bit of challenge. Things are connected, and not always in the ways a reader might predict.

In this particular book, there are a couple of different storylines, which may or may not be related. Plus, Ari’s ex is visiting with his son, so there’s a slight romance angle as well. I believe this is now the final book in this series, as he Jónasson has moved on to create a new series (the first two books I’ve also recently procured). It’s a decent enough wrap-up to the books, and I’m glad I got another chance to see how Ari would handle a case.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it ( )

Apparently the explosion of Icelandic books being translated led to scarcity of translators so Orenda Books decided to get this one translated via the French translation. Either that or it was just much cheaper to do so.

A bit over 2 years had passes since last time we saw Ari Thór Arason - it is Easter and it seems like for a change that there won't be a blizzard during the holiday. Kristín had finally left for Sweden to finish her education, taking their son with her (now 3 years old) and the relationship which had survived a lot had finally cracked completely. Kristín and the boy are coming to visit and Ari Thór really hopes that the crime in the small town will keep at bay for awhile. He had been finally promoted and now has the job that Tomas had when Ari Thór moved north 7 years ago, complete with a cheeky rookie (one wonders if he sees how similar he is to how he was 7 years ago).

And then a teenager falls from a balcony and dies on the sidewalk. So much about the calm holiday.

This is the 6th book in the series which was not planned - Jónasson returned to his finished series. In a lot of ways it serves as a goodbye - get us caught up on how everyone is doing, allow some dangling threads from earlier books to close, give closure to Ari Thór. Ugla, who he fell for in the first book, comes back in his life, as usual at the time when he is still trying to decide if he is ready to let Kristín really go (not that Kristín sees it the same way - for her the only connection left is their son).

As with earlier books, it is as much a crime novel as it is a novel of a place - we see more of the area that we had not seen before and we get the usual investigation method from Ari Thór - go forward until something shakes up. He is not a criminal investigation genius - he gets his wins by hard work - and tends to overlook things - as any normal person will.

The book is melancholic - it feels like we are saying a final goodbye and the overshadows the crime a little bit. Oh, we do learn what happened and see once again that some people really do not deserve to be part of the human race - it is the vulnerable and the young who suffer. But Ari Thór's final decision of where his home is is what drives the novel - it is a place where we can leave our detective and don't worry about him.

It is not a good introduction to either the author or the novel - it is a love letter to the readers of the series. Even if it can work somewhat on its own, it will be incomplete and I don't believe the crime is not enough to carry it. But as an epilogue to the series, it is perfect. And I will miss the small town of Siglufjörður and its occupants and especially its Police Inspector Ari Thór Arason. ( )