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Jar City (Reykjavík Murder Mystery #3)

by Arnaldur Indriðason, Bernard Scudder (Translator)

3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 · rating details · 5,356 ratings · 690 reviews

Jar City introduces American readers to a new crime writer from Iceland whose work has created an international sensation. Arnaldur Indridason has been compared to such luminaries in the field as Henning Mankell, Georges Simenon, Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall; everyone agrees that here is a world-class writer.
When a lonely old man is found murdered in his Reykjavík flat, the...more

Hardcover, 275 pages

Published October 1st 2005 by Minotaur Books (first published 2000)

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Jun 30, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

Yeah, it had a very similar feel to other Nordic thrillers. But, damn. That last 20%! You pretty well knew where the plot was going, but it was the characterization that left you balled in knots til the very end. Suspense barely covers it. Heart-attack-inducing might be more appropriate.

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Mar 16, 2012 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

Rating: 3 bleak * of five

It's hard for me to believe this is a debut novel. The author is, of course, a journalist and so the possessor of writerly skills; still, a novel is something wholly and entirely other than what he could be expected to do in his sleep.

I think the first-novel-ishness comes out in a few small ways. He introduces a deeply disturbing sub-plot and does almost nothing with it. He has characters behave in some ways that don't scan with their stated behaviors. But on the whole,...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Carolyn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: icelandic-fiction, favourites

The detective Erlendur series is my favorite discovery of the past decade. There is absolutely nothing similar in the detective fiction genre, and this includes other Nordic crime fiction such as the Millenium trilogy. It is just so Icelandic. The main character is complex, flawed and a mass of contradictions. The author skilfully combines threads of different plots into a very effective narrative.
Among the themes which are explored are guilt, loss of a child and coming to terms with the past (...more The detective Erlendur series is my favorite discovery of the past decade. There is absolutely nothing similar in the detective fiction genre, and this includes other Nordic crime fiction such as the Millenium trilogy. It is just so Icelandic. The main character is complex, flawed and a mass of contradictions. The author skilfully combines threads of different plots into a very effective narrative.
Among the themes which are explored are guilt, loss of a child and coming to terms with the past (or not). There are no cliched characters here: the victim elicits no sympathy at all, while we cannot fail to feel profound sympathy for the perpetrator.
Possibly one of the most fascinating aspects of the Erlendur series is the unfolding relationship between Erlendur and his drug-using daughter Eva. He is a man still traumatised by the disappearence of his brother in a blizzard when they were both children, and it has rendered him incapable of forming proper relationships ever since.
He seems to exhibit many of the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder: the emotional numbness, guilt at having survived when his brother did not, the recurrent, obsessive recollections of the event, his problems with social and intimate relationships, and the general lack of joy in his life.
Thus,in an act of self-absorbed callousness, he abandoned his wife and infant children when Eva was two, with disastrous consequences for Eva's development. The recurrent theme throughout the series is the missing person: Eva and Erlendur himself are both "missing persons" to themselves and eachother, and the reader feels that each one's salvation will be dependent on the finding of the other. They are so alike in their unhappiness, one taking drugs to ease her pain, and the other building a cold prison for himself to assuage his guilt.
Arnaldur writes for Icelanders, and doesn't compromise. There are no car chases, serial killers or other plot devices that are common to modern detective fiction, just excellent character development in an authentic Icelandic cultural and physical setting.
Jar City was the first of the series to be translated into English. Subsequent novels were Silence of the Grave, Voices, The Draining Lake, Arctic Chill and Hypothermia. There are three later ones awaiting translation, and they can't come soon enough for this reader! (less)

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Dec 23, 2008 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, mystery, reviewed

I read this book in one day. I can't think of the last time I did that. It helped that there was a snow storm outside and the temperature was in single digits but with all the other one could do in the house (including that neglected bookshelf dusting), the most interesting thing was this book. I love mysteries that are mysterious enough to keep me reading even if I've figured out some or all of it before the big reveal. Jar City reveals itself slowly over the course of the story, with the prota...more I read this book in one day. I can't think of the last time I did that. It helped that there was a snow storm outside and the temperature was in single digits but with all the other one could do in the house (including that neglected bookshelf dusting), the most interesting thing was this book. I love mysteries that are mysterious enough to keep me reading even if I've figured out some or all of it before the big reveal. Jar City reveals itself slowly over the course of the story, with the protagonist police detective and the reader finding out the information at the same time. With only one glaring, and annoying, exception at the beginning, the obvious and subtle are picked up by the reader and detective together. You're not left yelling at the police that they're being obtuse about an obvious clue and they aren't withholding anything they find from you, the reader. I appreciate the author treating me as a partner and not trying to outsmart me (that rarely works out well).

The one exception did annoy me. I didn't see any point to it other than the author trying to create an artificial suspense. When it was revealed, it didn't make any difference that it happened then instead of at another time. It was a strange choice, and it, and the translator, are the reason this book doesn't have another star.

Let me vent about the translation for a moment. Bernand Scudder did one excellent thing which was to give us a note on Icelandic names at the beginning of the text. It was a big help. I did happen to know that everyone uses first names, including listing people by their first names in the phone book, but there were other details that I hadn't known and I would have been confused without that early guidance. He did manage to give a way one of the subplots with it but I recommend reading it anyway. What I didn't like about the translation was a colloquialism of the translator's. Colloquialisms are particular to a culture or geographic area and it can't possibly be from the original text. The translator couldn't find a way to say whatever it was in a new way and fell back on something comfortable to himself, drawing on a folksy tradition that had nothing to do with the original author's intent. (I think). Maybe the author used a folksy, traditional saying there, I wouldn't know, but I do know that he couldn't have possibly have said what the translator did. When I see this type of stuff I get annoyed that the translator has asserted himself and all of his cultural baggage, without permission, into the text. Sometimes it's legitimate. Seamus Heaney did it specifically, deliberately (and told us up front) when he translated Beowulf. Scudder didn't do anything of the sort and it took a while to settle into the language after that. Too bad I don't know Icelandic.

One more thing. This book reminded me a great deal of Knots and Crosses. It may have been all the rain and the northern European feel. It may have been the similarities in the brilliant but renegade police detective with unhygienic living habits, a bad divorce in his past, and a daughter. If you like Ian Rankin, I think you'll like this book as well. The author is another smart man who likes to tackle socio-political issues in his mysteries.(less)

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Mar 26, 2008 Christy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mysteries, scandinavian-fiction

Arnaldur Indriđason's Jar City is a mystery novel set in Reykjavik that plays with issues of paternity, family, and identity. Mostly, however, it's a whodunit. As such, it's a good read. But as more than that, though it gestures toward larger questions, it left me wanting more.

The jacket reviews call it a "dark, haunting novel" with an "emotionally wrought ending that caught me off guard and touched me in a way that few mystery novels do" (The Boston Globe), one that, according to Time Out Lond...more Arnaldur Indriđason's Jar City is a mystery novel set in Reykjavik that plays with issues of paternity, family, and identity. Mostly, however, it's a whodunit. As such, it's a good read. But as more than that, though it gestures toward larger questions, it left me wanting more.

The jacket reviews call it a "dark, haunting novel" with an "emotionally wrought ending that caught me off guard and touched me in a way that few mystery novels do" (The Boston Globe), one that, according to Time Out London, "[culminates] in an ending that proves impressively moving." But the ending is somewhat predictable and underdeveloped. There is potential in the ending for something moving and meaningful, but it doesn't quite happen for me.

In part, the ending doesn't work for me because in this type of book, a mystery thriller that falls squarely within the limits of the genre, I expect all my mysteries solved at the end. There is one mystery in this book, though, that remains unsolved. Marion Briem, the protagonist's mentor, plays an important role in the novel. Briem provides Erlendur, the protagonist, with crucial information and occasionally points him in the next direction the investigation should take. This in and of itself is not a big deal. It's a common enough element of a mystery novel. But Marion Briem is a combination of an ungendered family name (unlike most other Icelandic names, such as Elendur Sveinnsson (Elendur, son of Sveinn) and an ambiguously gendered given name (Marion?). Gendered pronouns are carefully avoided in every discussion of Marion Briem and even physical descriptions are carefully devoid of specifically gendered information. For instance, Marion has "small, slight hands" and "a large head on what was in other respects a delicately built body" (119). And "to work with, Marion Briem was an intolerably pedantic, stringent and insufferable old bastard" (121). But this use of bastard is the only even remotely gendered reference to Marion and this is little proof when, later in the novel, Erlendur's colleague, who does not know Marion, says, "Wait a minute. Who is this Marion? What kind of name is that anyway? Is it a man or a woman?" Erlendur's reply is unnecessarily cryptic: "I sometimes wonder myself." What? This is never resolved. Clearly, there are more books following this first novel that feature Erlendur, but this kind of thing irks me. Take a minor character, create a seemingly meaningless mystery, and then never resolve it. In some ways, this feels like a cheap ploy to get the reader to buy the next book.

I do, however, like the detective protagonist, Erlendur. He is not brilliant, not inclined to great bursts of insight or intuitive leaps, instead relying on following the evidence and talking to people to crack the case. He is a loner, but he is slowly building a relationship with his grown daughter and attempting to deal with and help her deal with her drug addiction. He is a bit jaded and smokes too much, but he is not cynical or without hope. In the middle of the book, he expresses his doubt and frustration to his daughter, saying, "I don't know what I want to do. Maybe the best thing is to do nothing. Maybe it's best to let life run its course. Forget the whole business. Start doing something sensible. Why should I want to get involved in all this? All this filth. . . . You think it won't affect you. You reckon you're strong enough to withstand that sort of thing. You think you can put on armour against it over the years and can watch all the filth from a distance as if it's none of your business, and try to keep your senses. But there isn't any distance. And there's no armour. No-one's strong enough. The repulsion haunts you like an evil spirit that burrows into your mind and doesn't leave you in peace until you believe that the filth is life itself because you've forgotten how ordinary people live. This case is like that. Like an evil spirit that's been unleashed to run riot in your mind and ends up leaving you crippled" (187-88).

Despite this doubt, he continues, because, really, what choice does he have? As one character asks at the end of the book, "Who are you if you're not yourself?" Who would Erlendur be if he were not himself, if he did not do this? To give up would be to no longer be himself. His continuation in the face of repulsion and filth reflects on the strength of his character. Erlendur would never say outright that what he does is valuable, that protecting those who need protecting, those who cannot protect themselves, is a noble thing. That would be too sentimental and self-congratulatory of him. Instead, he matter-of-factly goes about doing it. No thanks. No rest. Just what needs to be done. He has a kind of stoic strength that gains in value because it is framed by his doubt, by his uncertainty both within his job and his personal relationships, by his attempts to grow as a human being and to learn to live with his daughter and her problems.

Ultimately, this is a good book and I would like to read Indriđason's other novels, but Jar City is outdone by Henning Mankell's books in the same mode. If you feel like a good Scandinavian mystery, I recommend one of Mankell's Kurt Wallander mysteries. Wallander and Erlendur are similar types and the landscape and its impact on the tone and narrative is much the same in Sweden (where Mankell's novels are chiefly set) and Iceland, but Mankell's novels are better developed and more intense than Jar City is.(less)

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Aug 26, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an intriguing novel, atmospherically and in its inexplicable ability to sustain the reader's interest -- despite the fact that practically everyone in it is strange, idiopathic, stilted or weird of articulation, practically autistically disconnected from reality, and committed to viewing everything generically and without depth or dimension, as though through the filter of a bad fifties cop drama. Dragnet, possibly, though without the cheeriness and empathy of Joe Friday.

Erlendur, the pr...more This is an intriguing novel, atmospherically and in its inexplicable ability to sustain the reader's interest -- despite the fact that practically everyone in it is strange, idiopathic, stilted or weird of articulation, practically autistically disconnected from reality, and committed to viewing everything generically and without depth or dimension, as though through the filter of a bad fifties cop drama. Dragnet, possibly, though without the cheeriness and empathy of Joe Friday.

Erlendur, the protagonist, is a weary, bleak, generally enervated and ineffectual police inspector wIth the emotional IQ of a dysfunctional gibbon, who always, always says and does the wrong thing in any situation in which ordinary human sensitivity is demanded. He's not remotely stupid, and he solves a complex case that calls into question issues ranging from misogynistic practices in the treatment of rape cases to the questionable ethics of the virtual "jar cities" of genetic databases, but in so doing, he ignores the obvious, passively abuses practically everyone around him with an aggressive indifference, fails to prioritize his daughter's life or his own health -- or anything that matters, really -- over the dreary details of a disproportionately comprehensive investigation, and ends by precipitating the suicide of the hapless and essentially innocent perpetrator of the original crime. And yet the story somehow gains ever more traction, and Erlendur ever greater approximation of minimal human warmth, as matters progress from parental neglect to abuse of witnesses to desecration of a child's grave to the perfectly foreseeable fatal ineffectuality of Erlendur's final attempt to avert Einar's suicide. In the dénouement, Erlendur sits with the drug-addicted, pregnant daughter he'd earlier left to the streets, eating the meat stew she's prepared and inexplicably sensitively suggesting that she name her daughter after the lost child who's the central victim of the whole drama.

Throughout, all the characters remark on how Icelandic everything is. Can you imagine saying not, "this is a typically clumsy murder," but "this is a typically clumsy, American murder?" Or it's just so American, the rainy weather today? Or I'd better take an American drive to the American supermarket? Is it a bad translation, or does the author think that everyone in Iceland is just unremittingly conscious of how Icelandic he or she is, and feels called upon constantly to remark on it? This sort of awkward, completely supererogatory, once-distanced observation goes on constantly, is committed by everybody, and gives rise to the sense that all the characters really do think they are cardboard cutouts in a minimalist screenplay by Lars Von Trier.

And yet somehow it works, and it's even emotionally and intellectually satisfying. There's just no accounting for some Nordic novels.(less)

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Jul 10, 2012 Eric_W rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: police-procedural

Bleak landscape, bleak characters, bleak story. Icelandic murders are simple ones usually insists Inspector Erlendur. This one is certainly not. An elderly man, Holberg, is found dead in his apartment with a strange note left on the body. The case then leads in a variety of directions: to a young child, the product of a rape, who had apparently died of a brain tumor; the suicide of her mother; the disappearance at sea of Holberg’s friend; additional rapes; a terminally ill cop unsympathetic cop...more

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Dec 10, 2011 Thom Dunn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1-k-mod-auth-nov, scandia, a-own-hardcover, crime-andor-thriller, fiction-novel, 2011, iceland

Does not disappoint. Some sense of idiomatic confusion, but on the whole extremely readable in English. Bears comparison with Henning Mankell--a careworn, flawed detective working in a harsh environment. Not exactly noir: much human warmth shines brightly in the overall bleak fictional landscape. A puzzlement: This is "Erlendur #3" but it appears nos 1 an 2 have not been translated into English. Will they be ? Can they bear cultural translation ? Would be nice to watch the development of Erlendu...more

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Aug 27, 2010 Vanessa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: cols-lib, read-in-2010

Arnaldur Indridason (a name I just retyped 4 times before I spelled it right) is a best selling writer in Iceland. I had a little trouble getting into this story at first but once I did, I did enjoy it and had to barrel through the last 100 pages to find out what happened. The way he wrapped everything up was fairly clever, making good use of Iceland's history, weather and demographics. His protagonist is Erlander, a Reykjavik detective investigating the murder of an old man that looks fairly un...more Arnaldur Indridason (a name I just retyped 4 times before I spelled it right) is a best selling writer in Iceland. I had a little trouble getting into this story at first but once I did, I did enjoy it and had to barrel through the last 100 pages to find out what happened. The way he wrapped everything up was fairly clever, making good use of Iceland's history, weather and demographics. His protagonist is Erlander, a Reykjavik detective investigating the murder of an old man that looks fairly unremarkable except nothing is stolen and an odd note is left behind. His colleagues point out repeatedly that murder in Iceland isn't very complicated but this one turns out to be, taking the protagonist all over the icy autumnal countryside and back 40 years to investigate a series of unprosecuted rapes and the unsolved disappearance of an unexceptional thug. Bonus: the book contains maps.

I also learned most Icelandic names are patronymics, which is why most last names end in -son or -dottir (like Bjork Gudmundsdottir.) As a result, everyone goes by their first name and the phone books listings are first name first.

I am deducting a star because the dialog could be a bit clunky in places which I am guessing is due to the translation (although I don't mean to be ungrateful that someone bothered to translate it from the Icelandic, a particularly difficult Germanic language to learn.) And as I said, the story was a wee bit slow to get rolling and it took a while to get a feel for the main character who I feared was the stock divorced misanthropic detective. By the end though, I did like how Indridason wasn't afraid to occasionally make him unlikable and I did feel I understood him a bit better-although I would have liked more detail filled in on him and his colleagues. This book is part of a series. I think there were other books in the series that precede this one but none translated into English thus far.

I also read this book was made into a movie that did well internationally so someone bought the rights to make a US version. Which they are setting in New Orleans. I really can't imagine how they'll pull that off for a variety of reasons, starting with the obvious lack of empty frozen vistas.(less)

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Nov 14, 2009 Brendan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, book-club, fiction, mystery

Jar City follows Detective Erlendur as he investigates the seemingly random murder of an old man with an ash tray. What he uncovers is a whole lot more sordid, complicated, and grim. A few thoughts:

* I haven’t read or seen very many Nordic mysteries–Death in Amsterdam, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the PBS Wallander series–but man, are they gloomy. Jar City is no different. What’s strange is that I find very little reason or specifics about what make it gloomy. It just IS. Dark and drear...more

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Jun 08, 2007 Writerlibrarian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read2006, mystery

This is an amazingly dark and desperate mystery novel. Set in Iceland, in mid late fall, when the days are short and humid and full of desperation. Erlendur ends up investigating the murder of an old, vicious man who might have raped countless of women. This book is about hiding from the past and the consequences of it. It's as good as the best Mankell's novel. I liked it a lot even if I was feeling quite blue when I finished it. It's a total trip into a country we barely know exist and a societ...more

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Jul 12, 2007 Jim Coughenour rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime4connoisseurs

The first novel in English by Indridason. Set in Iceland, this book and its sequels, Silence of the Grave and Voices, feature Erlendur Sveinsson, another middle-aged detective about ten scotches from suicide. He's an original, with an air of exhausted sophistication that makes Harry Bosch and John Rebus look callow.

Indridason is gift for anyone who loves a good crime story, but bored with the usual run of serial killers and sex addicts. The Icelandic context makes the stories richer and stranger...more

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Apr 20, 2010 Joyce Lagow rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

Set in Reykjavik, Iceland, this debut novel police procedural features Inspector Erlandur who is practically a copy of Henning Mankell� s Inspector Kurt Wallander. Both are divorced, both have trouble with their ex-wives, and both have terrible relationships with their daughters (although Wallander� s improves over the series). [return][return]The plot centers around the murder of an old man. The investigation slowly uncovers the fact that the origins of the murder go back decades to other crime...more

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Feb 02, 2009 Toni Osborne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Also published under the title "Tainted Blood"

This is the third Inspector Erlendur book but the first to be translated into English.

What seems to be like an ordinary murder of an old man whose head has been bashed in by an ashtray; things are far more complicated than they look. Many years ago the victim was accused of rape but never convicted of the crime. Did the old man's past come back to haunt him? Inspector Erlendur leads the police team and hunts down decade-old clues. They follow a trail...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Ingrid Verschelling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

In de wijk Noorderveen in Reykjavik wordt het lichaam van een dode man gevonden. Een geheimzinnig briefje is achtergelaten met drie woorden erop. De man, Holberg, leefde alleen en had geen familie. Hij had alleen twee vrienden, van wie één in de gevangenis zit en één jaren geleden spoorloos verdwenen is. Ze vinden in zijn huis een computer vol met pornografie. Bij verder onderzoek vinden ze in een bureaula een foto van een graf van een meisje van 4 jaar oud. Erlendur is ervan overtuigd, dat de f...more In de wijk Noorderveen in Reykjavik wordt het lichaam van een dode man gevonden. Een geheimzinnig briefje is achtergelaten met drie woorden erop. De man, Holberg, leefde alleen en had geen familie. Hij had alleen twee vrienden, van wie één in de gevangenis zit en één jaren geleden spoorloos verdwenen is. Ze vinden in zijn huis een computer vol met pornografie. Bij verder onderzoek vinden ze in een bureaula een foto van een graf van een meisje van 4 jaar oud. Erlendur is ervan overtuigd, dat de foto te maken moet hebben met het gevonden briefje, waarop geschreven drie woorden. Erlendur moet vertrouwen op zijn intuïtie, wanneer zijn collega ’s hun vertrouwen in het onderzoek verliezen. Als ze in het verleden van de man gaan graven, ontdekken ze dat hij ooit is aangeklaagd voor verkrachting, maar er niet voor veroordeeld is. Het blijkt, dat dit meisje geboren is uit deze verkrachting. Zij is overleden op vier- jarige leeftijd aan een hersentumor. Dit moet een erfelijke ziekte zijn, die al in de verkrachters familie voorkwam. Dit kunnen zij nu onderzoeken d.m.v. DNA- onderzoek, maar dan moet wel het lichaam van het meisje opgegraven worden. Holberg heeft nog een vrouw verkracht, maar naar deze vrouw zoeken is als een speld in een hooiberg.

De IJslandse inspecteur Erlendur en zijn assistent Sigurdur Óli moeten de moord oplossen. Elínborg helpt bij het onderzoek. Erlendur is de hoofdpersonage van Indriðason. In vorige boeken hebben we al met hem kennisgemaakt. Hij is een eigengereide man, die moeilijk is voor zijn omgeving. Hij is allang gescheiden en heeft een ingewikkelde relatie met zijn zoon en dochter. Zijn verslaafde dochter Eva Lind komt in dit verhaal bij hem in huis wonen, omdat zij zwanger is geworden. Erlendur hoopt, dat zij nu stopt met drugs gebruiken, omdat dit natuurlijk heel slecht is voor de baby. Zijn eigen gezondheid is ook niet om over naar huis te schrijven. Af en toe voelt hij steken in zijn hartstreek. Hij probeert te stoppen met roken, maar dat lukt niet erg. Naar de dokter durft hij niet te gaan, bang voor slecht nieuws.

Noorderveen is een intrigerend verhaal. De drie woorden op het briefje bij de dode man blijven een tijdlang onbekend. Dat maakt je nieuwsgierig. Het verhaal blijft je boeien van begin tot eind. Stukje bij beetje wordt de zaak ontrafeld. Het verhaal heeft wel een zwaarmoedige sfeer. De regen, die maar blijft vallen, geeft deze sfeer nog wat extra melancholieks. Vooral op het eind zijn er een paar ontroerende passages, die je aan het denken zetten. Indriðason kaart hierin een aantal ethische vraagstukken aan. In 1998 is er in IJsland een onderzoek naar genetische afwijkingen gestart. Hier is groeiend verzet tegen gekomen. Zie voor meer informatie: http://www.ikon.nl/werelden/afleverin...

De ontknoping is verrassend. Met zijn boek Noorderveen heeft hij de Glazen Sleutel gewonnen, de prijs voor de beste Scandinavische thriller van 2002.

Myrin' is de de verfilming van de gelijknamige thriller van de populaire thrillerschrijver Arnaldur Indridason, bij ons bekend onder de titel Noorderveen.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSdkE6...

Wat ik grappig vind, is dat je in IJsland als achternaam de voornaam van je vader of moeder krijgt en daarachter wordt 'son' of 'dottir' geplakt. Audur in dit boek wordt Kobrunsdottir, omdat ze niet door de vader erkend is. Iedereen in IJsland wordt met de voornaam aangesproken.

Noorderveen wordt in de VN thrillergids 2003 met 4**** gewaardeerd. Daar ben ik het helemaal mee eens. Een goed verhaal. (less)

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Mar 02, 2013 Ruben De somer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ik ben nooit een mega detective lezer fan geweest, maar toen ik een aantal maanden geleden me aan het doodvervelen was ergens op een bus. Nam ik uit de bibliotheek een boek van bovenstaande auteur, hoodzakelijk op basis van het aantal pagina's en het feit dat ik tot dusver nog nooit een scandinavische thriller in mijn handen had gehad. Een paar uur laten was hij uit. Recentelijk toen ik weer busdienst had zorgde ik ervoor dat er een aantal boeken van deze auteur werden geleverd en ik moet toegev...more

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Feb 20, 2013 Linda Prieskorn rated it 5 of 5 stars

As I've mentioned before I am not a big mystery fan. This book was on the suggested reading list for my upcoming Icelandic adventure. The author is a popular award winner. This book is the beginning of a "new series". The main character is reminiscent of Colombo. He is obsessively focused on details that others do not care about, this obsession is annoying to the others in the force but always pays off.

I found the cadence or rhythm of the language appealing, I wonder if it was the translation t...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Kyle rated it 4 of 5 stars

I fell in love with Iceland and have been there many times. What I especially liked about this novel was the descriptions of places in Iceland; cold, rainy, wet. Plus, reading all the Icelandic names which I never can pronounce.This was an interesting mystery that involved genetics within the Icelandic people. Good, fun read.

Description: When a lonely old man is found murdered in his Reykjavík, Iceland flat, the only clues are a cryptic note left by the killer and a photograph of a young girl’s...more

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Jul 17, 2012 aBeiLLe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

J’aime beaucoup les séries policières, j’en ai lu beaucoup depuis les 10 dernières années et je dois dire que j’en étais un peu blasée. Je trouvais que les intrigues, les personnages, le style se ressemblaient beaucoup, et tout ça manquait un peu de nouveauté. C’était sans compter l’arrivée dans ma vie de l’inspecteur Erlendur venu tout droit de Reykjavik, une ville d’Islande, cette île perdue au milieu de nulle part, à mi-chemin entre l'Écosse et le Groenland.

Erlendur est un bon vieux flic com...more

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Jul 04, 2012 James Thane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-fiction, suspense

This very intriguing novel introduces Inspector Elendur Sveinsson of the Reykjavik Police Department. In Iceland, where virtually everyone is related, people are known by their first names. Erlendur is in the throes of middle age and not in the best of health. He lives alone and has two troubled children, including a daughter who's in debt to drug dealers.

An elderly man is murdered in his basement apartment and the killer leaves an enigmatic note lying on the body. Some of Erlender's colleagues...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

I don't usually read police procedurals but I read this at a coworker's urging, he insisted it would give me a view of Iceland. He was wrong but I won't count that against the book. My exposure to police procedurals is the TV show Law and Order so I'm calling this book "Law and Order: Reykjavik" in my head.
The book was a very light read , I'm not sure that I understand what the author was trying to do in this book. He has basically three plot threads: the primary murder, a secondary case of a m...more

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Apr 29, 2012 Ian rated it 3 of 5 stars

There's plenty to like about Arnaldur Indriðason's novel Jar City (first published in Iceland under the title Myrin). Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson heads up the investigation into the murder of a man found bludgeoned in a basement apartment. The man lived a solitary existence, has no family and avoided contact with his neighbours. The clues left behind at the scene do not easily relinquish their meaning. But when Erlendur goes digging into the victim's past he unearths (literally) a series of dis...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Friederike Knabe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: european-lit

The sombre fall weather in Iceland can have a depressing influence on the people of Reykjavik. Even when it is not raining, the clouds are hanging deep over the city and the short days of light are preparing for an even darker winter. Arnaldur Indridason depicts the atmosphere brilliantly. A bleak, yet not uncommon environment for excellent thrillers. In Iceland, crime is usually straightforward, the motive evident and the case quickly resolved, muses Inspector Erlendur Sveinnson of the local po...more

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Feb 14, 2012 John Barlow rated it 5 of 5 stars

JAR CITY by Icelandic crime writer Arnaldur Indridason is sombre, clever, and extremely absorbing.

It’s a straight police procedural, involving a lead detective (Erlendur) who works on his instincts rather than simply following the obvious clues, and this sometimes frustrates of his colleagues. Like Wallander, he’s not an exciting or glamorous detective, and the whole setting (it rains throughout almost the entire book) is dour and underplayed, which, of course, is pretty much how many murder in...more

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Dec 31, 2011 Kelly Black rated it 5 of 5 stars

The small genetic pool of Iceland plays into the starkly composed mystery which marks the debut in English of Inspector Erlendur (though it was the third Erlendur book in Iceland). In what first presents as a typically rueful Icelandic crime Arnaldur Indriðason crafts a procedural that begins with a bashed in skull, but turns into something much more when the victim , Holberg, turns out to have been accused of rape but not convicted. The victim of the murder is a brutal character himself, now la...more

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Oct 07, 2011 Joe Young rated it 4 of 5 stars

A police procedural story set in Iceland. Detective Erlendur is a fifty year old long divorced father with two children, young adults. He had little contact with the children while they were growing but, welcomed them when they sought him out when they were older. His daughter was a drug addict deeply in debt to dealers while his son faired a little better. His life was his job and he worked long hours and weekends in the dark and cold and rainy north. A murder victim was found by his upstairs n...more

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Aug 20, 2011 Alyssia Cooke rated it 2 of 5 stars

I don't often read crime novels, although I do when the mood comes across me. Mostly I read books which are either most definitely not set in the real world such as science fantasy or the ridiculously depressing books which tend to be closer to biographies. But I'd read quite a few reviews of this particular author, both here and in other places and so I thought it worth a shot. Particularly as I was looking at buying books for my ski-ing holiday (yes, it has taken me this long to finally start...more

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Aug 14, 2011 Kathleen Hagen added it

Shelves: 2011-audio-books, 2011-mysteries

Jar City, by Arnaldur Indridason, a-minus, Narrated by George Guidall, produced by Recorded Books, downloaded from audible.com.

Gold Dagger Award winner Arnaldur Indridason's novels featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson became international sensations on their way to selling millions
of copies worldwide. The debut of morose detective Sveinsson finds the inspector and his team delving into the murder of a retiree with horrifying secrets. The inspector is called to an isolated cabin where a man has...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Derek Baldwin rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an excellent thriller, hopefully the first of a string of them by this author that I shall read (I have the next one on the "to read" pile). I have only withheld the full 5 stars because of a few quibbles with the translation which struck me as odd. Nothing I could put my finger on, mostly looseness of grammar, and a few instances of "he [blah blah]..." with no indication of who "he" was.

I especially liked the way the author withheld critical information. The early narrative dwells quite...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Ms.pegasus rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: mystery lovers,

Shelves: mystery, fiction

JAR CITY by Arnaldur Indridason (translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder) is deceptively austere in writing style. The story is propelled almost solely by the skillful intertwining of several story lines. A 70 year-old man named Holberg is found murdered in his damp squalid basement apartment. The only clues are a cryptic and hastily scrawled note and the aged photograph of a 4 year-old's grave. Inspector Erlendur of the Icelandic investigation unit and his team learn that the 4 year ol...more JAR CITY by Arnaldur Indridason (translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder) is deceptively austere in writing style. The story is propelled almost solely by the skillful intertwining of several story lines. A 70 year-old man named Holberg is found murdered in his damp squalid basement apartment. The only clues are a cryptic and hastily scrawled note and the aged photograph of a 4 year-old's grave. Inspector Erlendur of the Icelandic investigation unit and his team learn that the 4 year old was a little girl named Audur who died of a brain tumor some 40 years ago, and whose mother committed suicide three years later. Holberg is an interesting character despite his stereotypic bio. He lives in a modest apartment. He's 50, lives alone, subsists on an unhealthy diet of hastily consumed fast food, smokes, and has two semi-estranged children, the product of a brief marriage which ended in an acrimonious divorce. The daughter, Eva Lind, is a drug addict whom he has just learned is pregnant. This strand of plotting explores his relationship with Eva Lind, and its impact on his compulsion to pursue the investigation.

Minimal remarks underscore the unique claustrophobic character of Iceland. At one point, Erlendur remarks defensively, “I know Icelandic murders aren't complicated, but there's something about this one that doesn't fit...” At another point he argues: “A missing person returning a whole generation later. When people disappear in Iceland it's always for good. No one ever comes back after an absence of more than 25 years. Never.” It's an island country suspended just below the Arctic Circle; the population is distributed in a handful of coastal towns ringing the perimeter. People from the smaller towns keep in touch through gossip even when they've moved to other parts of the country.

Indridason holds the reader's interest through the dialogue of his characters. The arguments between Erlendur and Eva Lind explode like fireworks. Erlendur's former mentor, Marion Briem, is a mysteriously neutered presence whom we meet only through intermittent phone conversations. We learn that Erlendur has an uneasy relationship with his brilliant former mentor, but we never learn why.

The many plot strands are further tied together by a pervasive atmosphere of family secrets and lurid obsessions. This is an unusual mystery rooted in an unusual setting.
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About Arnaldur Indriðason

Arnaldur was born in Reykjavík on 28 January 1961, the son of writer Indriði G. Þorsteinsson. He graduated with a degree in history from the University of Iceland in 1996. He worked as a journalist for the newspaper Morgunblaðið from 1981 to 1982, and later as a freelance writer. From 1986 to 2001, he was a film critic for Morgunblaðið.

His first book, Synir duftsins (Sons of Dust) came out in 1997...more

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Quotes from Jar City

“Erlendur didn’t believe in premonitions, visions or dreams, nor reincarnation or karma, he didn’t believe in God although he’d often read the Bible, nor in eternal life or that his conduct in this world would affect whether he went to heaven or hell. He felt that life itself offered a mixture of the two.
Then sometimes he experienced this incomprehensible and supernatural de´ja` -vu, experienced time and place as if he’d seen it all before, as if he stepped outside himself, became an onlooker to his own life. There was no way he could explain what it was that
happened or why his mind played tricks on him like this.” — 1 person liked it

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Jar City (Reykjavík Murder Mystery #3)

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