2 x Arnaldur Indridason for Nordic FINDS challenge

This is the last week of the Nordic FINDS challenge hosted by AnnaBookBel. I have still to read the Finnish book for last week. It is rather thick and I have to continue reading it for February. My intention was to read a classic Icelandic tale, Salka Valka, by Haldór Laxness. He won the Nobel Literary Prize in 1955. However, I could not find a copy of the book, so I have to look for this later.

Instead I headed to the library and found two books by Arnaldur Indridason that I have not yet read. Both of them are from his Reykjavik Wartime Mystery series (Flovent and Thorson); The Shadow District and Petsamo. As the title of the series indicates, the crimes are set during World War II, with police investigator Flóvent and the American military investigator Thorson.

Both books are covering the troublesome times in Iceland during World War II; the foreign forces being placed there and the difficult relations between the Icelandic people and the military forces. Not everyone liked their presence. 

The Shadow District

"A deeply compassionate story of old crimes and their consequences, The Shadow District is the first in a thrilling new series by internationally bestselling author Arnaldur Indridason.

THE PAST

In wartime Reykjavik, a young woman is found strangled in 'the shadow district', a rough and dangerous area of the city. An Icelandic detective and a member of the American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer.

THE PRESENT

A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings reporting the WWII shadow district murder the dead man’s home. It’s a crime that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighbourhood.

A MISSING LINK

Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? Will Konrad's link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of WWII Reykjavik to rest?"

Petsamo 

In 1940 a young Icelandic woman bords a ship in the northern part of Finland. The ship is headed for Iceland with Icelandic people stranded in the Nordic countries due to the war. Her fiancée should have joined the ship but does not turn up. Along the route she receives information that he has been arrested by the Germans in Copenhagen.

A couple of years later two deaths are investigated by Flóvent and Thorson. One man found drowned, is a suspected suicide or accident, and a soldier having met a violent end outside a trashy bar in Reykjavik. 

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Arnaldur Indridason is a master of building up an exciting story. The background is the same in the two books. Wartime Iceland with foreign military forces on their land, and the political problems that might arise under such circumstances. While the story in Petsamo takes place during the war years, the story of The Shadow District are divided into the past and the present. I, personally, am a fan of two parallell story lines. Especially with Indridason who is a master in tying not only one, but two stories together. 

Indridason lets us follow the detectives' work. It is a lot of low key investigations, interviewing witnesses and other people that slowly comes into the story. His stories in themselves are often very sad, and could be fiction novels by themselves even without a crime. They are all touching and you can't help engage yourself in them. Both as regards the detectives and their lives, as well as the lives of victims and perpetrators.  

Two excellent thrillers which are difficult to put down. I read them in two days. The stories tend to stick with me, so I probably have to live with them for quite some time. His books are for anyone interested in a good story telling, good, mysterious crimes and interesting characters. His characters are mostly not one-sided, and that is why I think his books tend to engage you.