Saturday 18 June 2011

Watch out for Outrage

Outrage by Arnaldur Indridason
Have just read the proof of Outrage by Indridason, a title due out early July. Set in Reykjavik, this latest in a series features Detective Elinborg leading an investigation in the absence of her colleague Detective Erlendur. When a man is found dead, wearing only a woman's t-shirt and with the drug Rohypnol both in his jacket pocket and his mouth, the police are baffled not least because the scene does not fit the usual rape/murder profile. It transpires that the victim was once a resident of a small, isolated village a plane ride away from the Icelandic capital and that his circle of friends seems to extend to one, a reclusive and odd man. Elinborg is confronting the silence of a small village community; virtually no witnesses to either the victim's life or death; and her own family situation that is fraught with tension with her teenage son.
The narrative is, at times, slightly disjointed (a result perhaps of the translation process rather than the writing per se) but this is nonetheless a book well worth reading. Elinborg's character is developing well over the life of the series and indeed all the characters who populate this book are interesting and provide some surprise elements to the discussion of how certain crimes lead to multiple victims, not just the person physically harmed.