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Hypothermia (Reykjavík Murder Mystery #8)

by Arnaldur Indriðason, Victoria Cribb (Translator)

3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 · rating details · 2,215 ratings · 310 reviews

One cold autumn night, a woman is found hanging from a beam in her summer cottage. At first sight it appears to be a straightforward case of suicide; the woman, María, had never recovered from the loss of her mother two years earlier and had a history of depression. But when Karen, the friend who found her body, approaches Erlendur and gives him the tape of a séance that M...more

Paperback, 304 pages

Published October 2010 by Vintage (first published 2007)

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Oct 02, 2010 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Beth by: murderblog@yahoo.com

The atmosphere of HYPOTHERMIA is cold. The weather is cold and so are many of the characters, cold to the needs and the fears of those who trust them.

Maria is devastated by her mother’s death. Leonora had been dying for two years, slowly being consumed by cancer. Maria is married to Baldvin, a doctor, but it is the relationship with her mother that has determined her life. Since her father’s death when Maria was ten, Leonora has protected her daughter from all danger and over-protected so that M...more
The atmosphere of HYPOTHERMIA is cold. The weather is cold and so are many of the characters, cold to the needs and the fears of those who trust them.

Maria is devastated by her mother’s death. Leonora had been dying for two years, slowly being consumed by cancer. Maria is married to Baldvin, a doctor, but it is the relationship with her mother that has determined her life. Since her father’s death when Maria was ten, Leonora has protected her daughter from all danger and over-protected so that Maria was afraid to move beyond the boundaries established by Leonora. Not deeply involved in this life, she is obsessed by the next one.

Inspector Erlendur is given the task of meeting with Baldvin after he has been notified of his wife’s death. The doctor maintains there was nothing in his wife’s behavior or attitude that suggested that she was contemplating suicide. He acknowledges that Maria was still consumed by her mother’s death but he thought she was improving. But Erlendur is approached by Maria’s best friend, Karen, the woman who found the body at the summer cottage. She gives Erlendur a tape that was made during a seance and she tells the inspector that Maria believed in dreams and that Leonora was going to send her a sign if there was, indeed, life in the next world.

The old man was back to see Erlendur, a visit he has made, first with his wife, for nearly thirty years. His son, David, had disappeared without a trace but the old man is convinced beyond question that he did not commit suicide. Erlendur has kept the case open for the sake of the father; now the old man tells Erlendur that this will be his last visit. He is dying and is living in a nursing home and he is resigned to dying without ever knowing what happened to his son.

There are two other missing persons cases that have a hold on Erlendur. A woman and another young man disappeated at the same time as David. The woman, Gudrun, was a student who disappeared while her parents were traveling in China and Japan. Reliable phone contact wasn’t a given and calls over such a long distance had to be booked in advance. They didn’t realize their daughter was missing until they returned to Europe, two months after Gudrun had last been seen. They blamed themselves for being out of touch but they, too, insisted that she would never have committed suicide.

Erlendur is convinced that the third missing person was the victim of weather and bad choices. The young man had left to take a short walk to the next village but he was considerably underdressed for the weather. He was considerably intoxicated and a blizzart blew in suddenly, confusing him, and he likely took the wrong direction and went into the sea. There had been a significant effort to find him, but Erlendur accepted that the water had claimed this one.

Erlendur has no reasonsable excuse for continuing to investigate Maria’s suicide. He has no reasonable expectation of being able to solve the missing persons cases after nearly thirty years, but Erlendur is compelled to keep searching just as he his compelled to continue searching for his brother, lost in a blizzard when Erlendur was ten and his brother only eight. He has always felt guilty that he survived and his brother did not.

Erlendur is surrounded by ghosts. Maria, her father, Magnus, her mother, Leonora, David, Gudrun, the man lost in the blizzard and his brother, Bergur. But there are living ghosts that haunt him, too. His son and daughter have made contact with him. Eva Lind wants desperately to have Erlendur and his ex-wife, Halldora, meet to have a reconciliation that she thinks will change her life for the better, bring everyone together as the family they never were.

But it is the living that torment Erlendur’s psyche. What drove Maria to believe that life beyond the grave was her immediate destiny? Why did she commit suicide? The causes of a suicide are not a police investigator’s responsibility. Why can he not let Maria’s death go?

HYPOTHERMIA causes the heart to stop pumping warm blood through a cold body. Sometimes it is the heart that is cold even though the body still lives. There is more than one way to be killed by the cold.

Arnaldur Indridason is a master of psychological manipulation. It is characters that move the story, not events. Events are stage-managed by those whose purpose is nefarious. His characters are perfectly ordinary, and often, perfectly evil.(less)

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Dec 10, 2010 Cait rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads, mystery, owned, read-in-2010, cold-weather-reading

I am one of only 10 or so people - worldwide, it seems - who thought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sucked. I'm ok with that. The world would be a boringplaceifwealllikedthesameblah blah blah. But it did make me wonder, am I somehow missing the chromosome that is responsible for enjoyment of Scandinavian and Nordic crime fiction? Because people love this book. I entered the Good Reads giveaway for a copy of Hypothermia with the intent of answering that question. Plus, the description sounded pr...more I am one of only 10 or so people - worldwide, it seems - who thought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sucked. I'm ok with that. The world would be a boringplaceifwealllikedthesameblah blah blah. But it did make me wonder, am I somehow missing the chromosome that is responsible for enjoyment of Scandinavian and Nordic crime fiction? Because people love this book. I entered the Good Reads giveaway for a copy of Hypothermia with the intent of answering that question. Plus, the description sounded pretty cool.

Guess what? Arnaldur came through! This book is actually the 8th in a series, but I didn't feel out of the loop by having not read the previous books (some of which I don't think are translated to english yet). The central mystery of this story is interesting: the victim is a suicide. Inspector Erlendur embarks on an unofficial investigation in the hopes of understanding just what drove this woman to such an end. Erlendur himself has a back story that's just as compelling, if not more.

I used to read a lot of crime fiction when I was younger. Not the hardboiled variety, more the CSI/Law & Order kind. I attribute that to the dream I had of one day becoming a criminal profiler for the FBI (until I realized I was to chickenshit to become a cop). John E. Douglas is still one of my personal heroes. My aspirations have since turned to medicine - primarily pathology - but it all boils down to the same interests. I like the puzzle. The helping people part is cool and all, and a really great bonus, but the assembling of clues and seemingly random bits of information into one coherent story is what really pumps my nads.

Arnaldur does this well in Hypothermia. Even when I knew where all of the puzzle pieces would go - and I fully believe it was not due to my stellar deductive reasoning, but because it was Arnaldur's intention all along - I was still just as interested in seeing them fall into place. I think what I liked most, though, was the atmosphere Arnuldur evoked. If I had synesthesia, I would probably describe this book as gray.

I began to gravitate away from genre fiction years ago*, but books like this remind me of how moronic it is to disregard entire classes of books rather than judge them individually on their own merit. Arnaldur has not only induced me to read more of his work, but he has also managed to renew my desire to read some of the other similar books on my shelves: Faceless Killers, Echoes from the Dead, The Unit, to name a few. So yeah, regarding Stieg Larsson? I guess I'm just weird like that.

*Embarrassing confession. I remember the moment this gravitation began. I was at the library in 1999, looking for a Patricia Cornwell book (shut up) when, due to the alphabetical vicinity, I came across Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma. The rest is history.(less)

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Apr 11, 2013 Ingrid Verschelling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

In Þingvellir wordt in een zomerhuis het lichaam gevonden van Maria door een vriendin Karen. Zij zou het huisje huren voor het weekend en vindt Maria hangend aan de balken. De politie gaat uit van zelfmoord. Karen vertrouwt het eigenlijk niet, want ze had pas nog geïnformeerd naar een kapper. Dan ga je toch geen zelfmoord plegen? Karen neemt contact op met Erlendur en laat hem een cassettebandje horen met een gesprek van Maria met een medium. Maria was heel erg geïnteresseerd in een leven na de...more In Þingvellir wordt in een zomerhuis het lichaam gevonden van Maria door een vriendin Karen. Zij zou het huisje huren voor het weekend en vindt Maria hangend aan de balken. De politie gaat uit van zelfmoord. Karen vertrouwt het eigenlijk niet, want ze had pas nog geïnformeerd naar een kapper. Dan ga je toch geen zelfmoord plegen? Karen neemt contact op met Erlendur en laat hem een cassettebandje horen met een gesprek van Maria met een medium. Maria was heel erg geïnteresseerd in een leven na de dood. Erlendur raakt geïntrigeerd door de zaak en gaat het op zijn eigen houtje in zijn vrije tijd uitzoeken.

Hij is verder nog bezig met een aantal oude vermissingen. Dat houdt Erlendur toch al bezig. Een oude man, die op sterven ligt, heeft zijn zoon Davið, die eindexamen gymnasium deed, jaren geleden als vermist opgegeven. Hij is nooit teruggevonden. Hij bleef in contact met Erlendur, om te horen of er schot in de zaak zat. Nu de man op sterven ligt, wil Erlendur nog één poging wagen. Ook verdween toentertijd Guðrun, een studente aan de universiteit, die samen met haar gele Mini nooit is teruggevonden.

Zijn beide kinderen vragen aan Erlendur, waarom hij eigenlijk gescheiden is van hun moeder. Hij vertelt ze het verhaal uit een boek over de barre tocht, waarbij zijn broer verdween en hoe hij daarna geworden is. Tijdens zijn zoektocht wordt Erlendur steeds herinnerd aan de verdwijning van zijn eigen broer. Aan het eind van het verhaal trekt Erlendur dan ook naar de hoogvlakte waar zijn broer verdwenen is.

In Onderkoeld speelt Erlendur eigenlijk helemaal alleen de hoofdrol. Hij filosofeert veel over het toeval. Dat heeft mij ook veel beziggehouden. Ook de vraag of er een God bestaat, houdt Erlendur bezig: “Ik weet niet zeker of je je lot in handen van de goden moet leggen, wie het ook zijn,’ zei Erlendur. ’Je schept je eigen lot.’ Dat is ook een vraag, die mij intrigeert. Is dat wel zo? Erlendur blijft zoeken naar antwoorden. Onderkoeld is weer een indrukwekkend boek: vier sterren.(less)

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Jun 17, 2012 Cameling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: murder-mystery

An historian is found hanging from a noose in her holiday cottage and a case of suicide is declared. Detective Erlendur, for want of a gruesome homicide to solve, starts to wonder what would cause a seemingly well adjusted woman decide to take her life, leaving behind a grieving husband and many friends. With nothing pressing at work, he begins a private investigation of his own, to try and understand the woman and her past, and his curiosity unravels a childhood with a protective mother who suc...more

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May 29, 2012 Rob Kitchin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hypothermia is a book that slowly draws you in, wraps a warm blanket around you and envelopes you in intricately woven narrative layers. Indridson’s skill is in the plotting and pacing of stories; in placing his readers in the landscape and culture of Iceland and capturing the humdrum interweaving of lives, the mundane and everyday conflicts and betrayals, and exploring the small and petty things that people do to each other. The under-stated narrative is driven by a steady pace and emotional re...more

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Feb 08, 2012 Nigel Bird rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

'Hypothermia' is well named. There’s something chilling about the investigations of Detective Erlendur that runs from the first page right through to the end.

This book was my introduction to Erlendur, and I found him to be rather engaging. To try and post reference points to the uninitiated, I feel that he combines elements of Maigret and Columbo; the thoughtful country-boy working tirelessly and skilfully in the big city combined with a terrier-like erosion of the people involved. Throw in the...more

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Dec 27, 2011 Antonomasia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nordic, 2011, crime

If you're looking for an action-packed thriller, this isn't it. It's a slow and steady piecing together of a woman's life and death as Erlendur gradually talks to various people who knew her. He also digs around in a couple of old missing person cases and muses on old family issues - the disappearance of his brother when they were both children, and at the behest of his adult daughter, his failed marriage to her mother.

The book was a bit spooky, as the dead woman Maria believed in ghosts, but t...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Mal Warwick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Here’s an author — from Iceland, no less — who has sold more than five million copies of his thrillers and won several prizes along the way. So, sucker that I am for mysteries written in or about exotic times and places, I made a beeline for Hypothermia. After all, the crime novel maven at the New York Times had recommended it.

Unfortunately, this novel — literally subtitled “A Thriller,” like most of Indridason’s previous books — isn’t especially thrilling. I persisted to the end more out of mil...more

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Jul 27, 2010 J.R. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thrillers

A routine (and largely unofficial) investigation of a suicide leads a relentless detective closer to resolution of a tragedy in his own life.

A young woman, disconsolate over the cancer death of her mother and equally obsessed by the drowning of her father when she was a child, has apparently hanged herself at a summer cottage. It appears a clear case of suicide.

The case wasn’t even Erlendur’s. His initial involvement was to notify the victim’s husband, who lived in the inspector’s district. The...more

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Apr 27, 2010 Nancy Oakes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scandinavian-crime-fiction-and-myst, translated-fiction

There's a subtle elegance to this particular story, considering it's a novel of crime fiction. There are no raging maniacs with axes hanging about, no serial killers, and no serious threats to the people of Reykjavik. In fact, there seems to be a lull in crime as this story opens, and Erlendur has some time to go back to some very cold cases. While pondering the ones that got away unanswered, he becomes involved with a new case, that of a woman who was found hanging in her vacation home. There a...more There's a subtle elegance to this particular story, considering it's a novel of crime fiction. There are no raging maniacs with axes hanging about, no serial killers, and no serious threats to the people of Reykjavik. In fact, there seems to be a lull in crime as this story opens, and Erlendur has some time to go back to some very cold cases. While pondering the ones that got away unanswered, he becomes involved with a new case, that of a woman who was found hanging in her vacation home. There are no signs to indicate anything other than suicide, but her friend Karen isn't so sure. Karen brings Erlendur a cassette tape of the dead woman's previous session with a medium and gets his attention. Working on his own, with no official police involvement, Erlendur works to find out why this woman took her own life. In a brief phone chat with Sigurdur Oli, when Erlendur notes that he wants to know "why she committed suicide," Erlendur explains why:

[Sigurdur Oli asks:] " 'What's it to you?'
'Nothing,' Erlendur said. 'Absolutely nothing.'
'I thought you were only interested in missing-person cases.'
'Suicide is a missing-person case too,' Erlendur said and hung up on him."

Given Erlendur's background with the brother who was lost in a blinding snowstorm, his interest in the lost is no surprise. And it's no surprise that he identifies with the ones left behind, for example, the grieving father who has checked in with Erlendur every year since his son vanished. For this man, time is running out because he's dying, and Erlendur wants him to go with answers. There's another missing persons case Erlendur goes back to as well -- that of a young woman who vanished one day, car and all. But it's the suicide that takes most of his time, as he gets into the head of the dead woman, just trying to figure out why.

Hypothermia is an excellent novel, and will give you pause to consider the nature of grieving and loss as you follow Erlendur throughout. Probably more than any of the previous novels in the series, place is itself a character, especially the cold and lonely lakes of Iceland. I loved this book and cannot recommend it highly enough.

fyi: do NOT expect major action in this novel. (less)

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Mar 13, 2013 Linda Branham Greenwell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I absolutely loved this book
This mystery is full of ghosts, ghosts from the past as well as the recently deceased. In this mystery we learn much more about Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson of Reykjavik, we also learn about Iceland and the approach to life of the people there. The sad and introverted ... and also insightful... inspector works on his own in an unofficial capacity, curious about the suicide of a woman at her holiday cottage. As a child, Maria, saw her father drown in the icy lake near...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Kristine Brancolini rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hypothermia unfolds with the classic Indridason pace and solemnity. Inspector Erlendur explores issues of life after death, as he "investigates" -- not there's anything to investigate -- an obvious suicide and the disappearance of two unrleated young people thirty years ago. Erlendur has become something of a "cold case" expert on missing persons. I was surprised to learn a couple of books ago that disappearances are somewhat common in Iceland and of course, Erlendur's own 8-year-old brother van...more

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May 07, 2012 Snotchocheez rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The good news: Arnaldur Indridason's contribution to the "Nordic Crime Fiction" genre, Hypothermia, mercifully free of the out-of-check misogyny and torture porn that threatens to derail Stieg Larsson's "The Girl..." series (and to a lesser degree, Jo Nesbø's works), provides a very original premise and some very creepy machinations that pack quite a wallop, particularly at the end. It involves an Icelandic inspector (named Erlendur) and his sinuous investigation of a woman's suicide-by-hanging....more The good news: Arnaldur Indridason's contribution to the "Nordic Crime Fiction" genre, Hypothermia, mercifully free of the out-of-check misogyny and torture porn that threatens to derail Stieg Larsson's "The Girl..." series (and to a lesser degree, Jo Nesbø's works), provides a very original premise and some very creepy machinations that pack quite a wallop, particularly at the end. It involves an Icelandic inspector (named Erlendur) and his sinuous investigation of a woman's suicide-by-hanging. The did-she-or didn't-she-kill-herself question is central to the plot, and the lengths that the inspector must go to to find the answers (including re-examining a couple of 30-year-old missing-persons cases that on the surface bear no relevance whatsoever to the suicide) are components of a very eerie and suspenseful thriller.

And the bad news: having to endure some really creaky segues, super-convoluted leaps of logic, and countless Icelandic travelogue descriptions like the paragraph below I culled at random (from page 229):

They began with a small circuit of the city. He had studied detailed maps of Reykjavik and its vicinity, and was surprised at the vast number of lakes that were to be found in a relatively small area. They were almost uncountable. He and Eva Lind started at Lake Ellidavatn where a new suburb had sprung up, then did a circuit of Raudavatn on a decent road, before continuing to Reynisvatn which had now disappeared behind the new suburb of Grafarholt. From there they drove past Langavatn and had a view of numerous little lakes on Middalsheidi Moor before slowly proceeding to Mosfellheidi. They inspected Leirvogsvatn beside the road to Thingvellir, followed by Stiflisdalvatn and Mjóavatn. It was late by the time they descended to Thingvellir, turned north and passed Sandkluftavatn which lay beside the road north of Hofmannaflöt on the route over the pass at Uxahryggir and down the Lundarreykjadalur valley. They picnicked beside Litla-Brunnavatn, just off the road to Biskupsbrekka.

Really.

(less)

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Jan 12, 2011 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-iceland

I've read all in this series and this one stands out. The solitary Erlendur is on a personal quest outside the scope of his official duties. His usual sidekicks make fleeting appearances. He seeks answers on decades old cold cases of two missing persons while also making discrete inquiries on a cut and dry suicide case. He had reluctantly taken up the suicide case after listening to a tape of the deceased at a seance and his quest quickly escalates into a crusade. At the same time his personal l...more

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Mar 30, 2010 Jim Coughenour rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of Scandinavian crime novels

Shelves: crime4connoisseurs

As I was reading Indriðason's latest Erlendur novel, with its multiple mysteries and improbable concatenation of coincidences, I asked myself what I'd think of this plot if it had been written by a Californian and set in & around San Francisco. The answer is: probably not much. True, I relish the sad-sack personality of the detective, if only because he reminds me of myself in certain moods. And the crimes are convoluted enough to make me stay around for their resolution. But what really giv...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Ingrid Hansen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

I love Arnaldurs books and this one doesn't let you down.
Erlundur is called to a summerhouse where a young lady i found dead by hanging from a wood beam.
It seems that it's a suicide but Erlundur is being haunted by the young lady's fate and ghost so he begins his own investigation of what really happened.
A long with this sad and tragic case Erlundur is visited by an old man whose son disappeared over 30 years ago and he decides to try and give the old man some peace before he dies in figuring ou...more

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Nov 10, 2010 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: firstreads, lit-finland-iceland, mystery-nordic

Full disclosure: I won this via Firstreads giveaway. I haven't read much Icelandic literature except for the odd short story.

One of the really good things about Goodreads and the giveaway program is that you are exposed to wrkt hat you wouldn't otherwise read or, at the very least, exposes you to such work faster. This is yet another case of Goodreads fulfilling that function one.

Hypothermia is one of those books where the author trusts the reader. Any person who has seen at least two films (one...more Full disclosure: I won this via Firstreads giveaway. I haven't read much Icelandic literature except for the odd short story.

One of the really good things about Goodreads and the giveaway program is that you are exposed to wrkt hat you wouldn't otherwise read or, at the very least, exposes you to such work faster. This is yet another case of Goodreads fulfilling that function one.

Hypothermia is one of those books where the author trusts the reader. Any person who has seen at least two films (one American, one French) will be able to figure out the mystery before the end of the novel. In truth, however, the mystery does not seem to be the focus of the novel. Or at the least the death doesn't seem to be focus of the novel.

Erlendur, the detective probing the case, is just as much as a mystery to this first time reader of this series as the mystery mentioned on the back cover. It is not so much mystery of who did that, but more of what makes us who we are. If anything the focus is on human motive and not motive for a killing.

The book also deals with how we come to terms with loss, how each person comes to terms with such a loss in a different way. Perhaps this is why the book has a chill to it, a forboding that isn't present in the Wallander novel or the Stieg Lawson's The Girl Who Played with Fire. Yet, despite this, there is something that speaks in this thriller, though I hesitate to use that term.

It avoids being simple, easy, and even stupid because it confronts humanity. As I was reading the book, I was struck by how a modern television show such as Law & Order, Hawaii Five-0 or any of the C.S.I.s would goof it up and make it some emotionally cheap clap trap. It is on par with the great shows, like The Wire or Homicide:Life on the Street. Serieses that could take such a plotline as a death of a little girl and present as something more than a reason for a detective to indulge in a self rightous monologue or stare moodily at the picture of the children lost in the divorce.

In the wake of a suicide and a missing person's case, Erlendur and his creator take the reader on an exploration of the human pysche in terms of the big issues - love, death, and marriage.(less)

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Nov 02, 2010 Jmm rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: highly-recommended, police-procedural, iceland

Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson is back full force in Hypothermia, the sixth title in Arnaldur Indriðason's Icelandic detective series following a somewhat anemic Artic Chill. This time around the plodding but relentless Erlendur is called out to investigate the apparent suicide of a young woman named María who was found hanging from a beam in the living room of her holiday cottage by a friend, Karen, who had asked to use the lake cottage for the weekend. The lake by the cottage is also where María...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Ape rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scandinavia, crime

This was such a good read, and definately one of his better books. It is a haunting, reflective tale, and it's so well written, taking a simple incident and building this story from it. And he doesn't feel the need to end every chapter on a cliff hanger, like it has to be some sensationalist page turner, so it feels more natural.

The title doesn't immediately seem relevant, but this is a book about hypothermia ending people's lives in different ways, and interestingly I think this book brings som...more

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May 01, 2011 Kathleen Hagen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-audio-books, 2011-mysteries

Hypothermia, by Arnaldur Indridason, A. Narrated by George Guidall, produced by Recorded Books, downloaded from audible.com.

At last, we’re getting access to this wonderful author from Iceland. I would have preferred that audible download the British productions because, while Guidall is very good, he’s also too American in accent. In Hypothermia, Inspector Erlendur contends with personal demons while investigating what appears to be a woman's suicide. Although there are no signs of foul play, Er...more

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May 30, 2012 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As you might have guessed I've become a fan of Arnaldur Indridason's Icelandic mysteries. This is the third one I'm reading and reviewing. His protagonist remains the same ... the grumpy Inspector Erlendur and his main team of Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli. Still effecting Erlendur is his divorce of decades ago and the welfare of his 2 children, Sindri and Eva Lind. But still with the past and present continuing to effect his daily life, he will continue to solve crimes in the here and now.
This bo...more

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May 23, 2011 Suz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jan-june-2011

Excellent book! This was my first "Icelandic thriller" and I have to say it was definitely different from an "American thriller" but I still enjoyed it. A detective from Iceland is presented with a suicide that looks suspicious to him so he investigates it even after everyone else has given up on it. He is also still trying to find people who have been missing for 20 years. The author does a great job of weaving the multiple investigations together with the life and background of the detective t...more

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Jan 08, 2011 Rebecca Martin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: global-detective-fiction

Reading this most recent novel in the series, I finally realized that rather than the theme of the investigator-protagonist's lost brother being a distraction from the plot, it is actually the deep thematic core of the whole series. It was much more apparent in this book, the fifth in the series featuring Inspector Erlendur. THIS is what forces him deep into his investigations, all of which involve losses or disappearances. It was much more obvious in this novel that the story of the disappearan...more

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Jun 21, 2011 Lisa Sansone rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have nothing against Indriðason. He is a thoughtful writer (more so than most in this genre), and I like his protagonist (a slightly depressed, down-trodden detective) well enough. I will say that I found this particular book a little hard to get through. For one, I'm not particularly interested or caught up in the whole "other world" or "life after death" debate, so slogging through a novel written (thoughtfully) around this issue was a bit of a chore. Also, Indriason's books seem to be less...more

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Dec 17, 2010 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-crime-detection

Indridason, Arnaldur. HYPOTHERMIA. (first U.S., 2010). ****. Indridason always manages to write engaging crime novels, all set in his native Iceland, and featuring Inspector Erlendur as his continuing character. As has become the fashion now days, our inspector spends a lot of his time on unsolved or “closed” cases. In this one, he is researching a relatively recent suicide of a young woman and the “Missing person” case of a young man that is over thirty years old. What these two cases have in c...more

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Oct 22, 2011 Ellie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nordic-noir, crime, fiction, series, 2011ind-chal200bks

Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indriðason is number 8 in Indridason's Erlendur Sveinsson series. Erlendur is another in the Nordic line of tortured detectives whose work is driven by their painful histories. To be clear, I love these detectives. Especially Erlendur.

In Hypothermia, Erlendur is called to the scene of a suicide (one of my favorite lines in this & maybe any book is when Erlendur's colleague says to him, "I thought you were only interested in missing person cases." and Erlendur respond...more

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Nov 08, 2010 Cindy Meilink rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I received a free copy of this book from First Reads and I couldn't put it down. The pace of the story was perfect and Indridason's characters were wonderful.

Erlendur is an inspector with the Reykjavík police force who becomes intrigued with the case of an apparent suicide. Although nothing seems particularly suspicious, he cannot let the case go and methodically follows the threads of the case to see where they might lead.

While pursuing the leads on this case, he also recommences his work on tw...more

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Sep 21, 2010 Carol rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This mystery was just as it should be. A woman commits suicide or did she? The detective must determine if it’s murder or not. The story is revealed a step at a time, a logical progression of deduction and you, the reader, gets to go along on the ride.

Hypothermia was satisfying from start to finish. I haven’t read any of the others in the series but like the character, Detective Erlendur. He’s just flawed and quirky enough to hold my interest. I could grow to really like him as he seems to have...more

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Aug 27, 2012 Mary Billinghurst rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It took me a while to get used to the clipped style of this novel. It is reminiscent of other Scandinavian mysteries where the authors do not waste words on lengthy descriptions. Once I got used to the writing, I found myself intrigued by the interconnected stories of death and loss that Indridason explores. This is not a simple "whodunit" but, rather, a deep exploration of the ghosts that haunt many of the characters, including the chief detective Erlendur.

As the mystery slowly unravelled, I w...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bookcrossing, fiction-general, crime-thriller

3.5 stars (HINT HINT Goodreads, please allow half stars SOMEDAY soon!)

This is the 4th book I've read by Indridason and I have to say it's my least favorite. Something about it seemed very different than the others. First, this book has a different translator. I'm not saying it was bad, just different than the previous books. Second, the "crime" just wasn't all that interesting to me. I admit I'm not the least bit interested in life-after-death, so maybe that was what turned me off. I almost didn...more

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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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Hypothermia (Reykjavík Murder Mystery #8)

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