The Shadow District

Rape, Murder and Seventy Years of Icelandic History

The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indriðason is the first of two Reykjavik Wartime Mysteries.

Set during World War 2, they feature an Icelandic and American detective and combine a robust sense of history with a hint of Icelandic folklore to keep you wondering.

Synopsis

It is 1940s wartime Iceland. The country is awash with Canadian and American troops. They were preparing for the invasion of Europe and spending every spare minute seeking out the local girls. Two of these girls had been raped and told to blame the Huldufolk – the Icelandic Fairies. A young couple found one of them dead under a cardboard box in a doorway by the National Theatre. The other had disappeared.

Seventy years later, police find Stefan Thordarson, one of the Canadian army police officers who had investigated the crimes, lying dead on his bed. Well into his nineties, they believed he had died of old age, but the pathologist thought differently. Somebody had suffocated him with a pillow. Was it an act of euthanasia or something darker?

Review

Arnaldur Indriðason’s Shadow District is a quietly tragic tale. He weaves together the stories of a murdered girl, a retired detective and a Canadian military policeman. As well as a detective novel, Indriðason also gives an absorbing insight into Iceland’s history, a country that the Second World War propelled from a poor peasant society to a modern European nation.

The protagonist’s motivations are all too human. There is nothing fanciful or flashy about Indriðason’s tale. He draws his readers in with a compelling, down-to-earth depiction of human behaviour, linking murders across the decades. At the same time, Indriðason manages to give a lesson in Iceland’s history. You could almost convince yourself it is educational – in a trail of bodies sort of way.

Excerpt

‘Hello!’ the fat cop called into the flat.

There was no answer. Telling his cousin and the woman from next door to wait outside he beckoned his partner to follow him in.

‘Hello’ he called again. Still no reply.

The policemen made their way cautiously into the flat. The fat cop sniffed the air. The smell that greeted them was bad enough for both men to clamp their hands over their noses. All the curtains were drawn and the lights were on in the hall, kitchen and sitting room.

‘Hello!’ called the thin officer, a little shrilly. ‘Anybody home?’

The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indriðason