The Shadow Killer (Book) (2018)

The Shadow Killer, by Arnaldur Indridason

Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

New York, NY: Minotaur Books, 2018

Originally published in Iceland with the title Pýska húsid in 2015

List of main characters:

Stephan Thorson/Stefán Thórdarson

Flóvent

Felix Lunden

Rudolf Lunden

Hans Lunden

Vera

Brynhildur Hólm

The Shadow Killer is the second in what I hope will be several books in a series about the detectives Thorson and Flóvent. The first book in the series, The Shadow District, introduces the two main characters (Thorson and Flóvent). The first book takes place more or less in the present and links a crime committed in the present to a crime from the past. The Shadow Killer reintroduces Thorson and Flóvent, but this time when they meet on their first case.

When I finished reading the first book in the series, I had questions that I hope will be answered in subsequent books in the series:

◊ Will the author, Arnaldur Indridason, continue the themes introduced in the first book in the series?

◊ For example, will he continue to use folktales?

◊ And will he allow female characters, instead of male characters, to interpret them for readers?

It seems to me, based on my reading of the two books in the series available in English, that Indridason will focus mostly on his two main characters. He weaves in history, culture, and literature, but only to further his stories about the detectives working on their cases.

Click here for my blog post about The Shadow District, the first book in the series.

The Shadow Killer is a quick, fun read. I started to worry, in fact, after about 100 pages, that it wasn’t going to be noir enough for me to write about it for my blog, but I was wrong. It has a lot of the elements that many films noir from the 1940s have: a femme fatale; murder, with the accompanying murder investigation; two detectives that serve as two of the main characters; espionage. It even takes place during World War II. I can easily picture it as a neo-noir film.

The Shadow Killer takes readers to back to the beginning of Flóvent’s and Thorson’s working partnership. Flóvent works for the Iceland Criminal Investigation Department in Reykjavík; Thorson is a Canadian volunteer for the American military. An Icelandic salesman has been murdered, and it’s possible that he was killed with an American service weapon. That possibility brings Thorson into the case because American interests also have to be protected. He and Flóvent have to figure out the salesman’s true identity, find his killer, and find out if the motive behind the killing has anything to do with wartime espionage.

The setting and the period are clear from the beginning, but it’s rather late in the novel when Indridason gives Flóvent’s and Thorson’s perspectives. I really like the description of Flóvent’s home life, which gives some historical detail as it relates to Flóvent personally:

. . . They [Flóvent and his father] usually spent their evenings chatting or companionably listening to the wireless, and Flóvent knew that his father treasured these moments. He was a family man who had lost half his family in one fell swoop when his wife and daughter died of the Spanish flu. He and Flóvent bore their sorrow in silence. He had never gone out looking for another woman after his wife died. He was a member of the last generation of Icelanders to experience true hardship, having lived through war, depression, and epidemic—all without uttering a word of complaint. (pages 102–103)

I also like how Indridason gives a rather sympathetic view, from Thorson’s perspective, of what the Icelanders call The Situation, the fraternizing of British and American service men with Icelandic women:

. . . A new consignment of American troops had recently arrived, and he [Thorson] thought their numbers now equaled those of the British and Canadian troops in the dance hall. The local women had already begun to transfer their affections to the Yanks and he soon saw why. The Americans had a lot more money to throw around. They were better groomed. Had broader grins. They were Clark Gable to Britain’s Oliver Twist. (page 105)

Iceland is going through upheaval on many levels: politically, economically, and culturally. And it’s all because of the beginning of World War II. In the meantime, Icelanders are still dealing with the effects of the flu epidemic of 1918, World War I, and the Great Depression.

One of the suspects in Flóvent’s and Thorson’s murder investigation is the murdered man’s ex-girlfriend, Vera. Readers don’t actually meet her until later in the novel, but her name comes up early in the investigation. It soon becomes apparent that she is used to getting what she wants and will resort to almost anything to do so. Indridason describes Vera as a femme fatale without ever assigning the label to her. Here’s part of a scene in which Thorson talks to a former boyfriend of Vera’s, the blacksmith:

The blacksmith gazed out of the kitchen window at the sunset, as if weighing up whether he should add something else. Thorson waited patiently, and after a long interval the man cleared his throat.

                “Is there more?” asked Thorson.

”No, it’s just she said something that you probably ought to know about. It’s only just come back to me. I thought nothing of it at the time, because she was obviously messing around. I don’t even know if I should be telling you because you’re bound to take it too seriously. Read too much into it.”

                “What did she say?”

                “There was an accident. A man drowned in a trout lake up on the moors near here. And she said I could go fishing with her fiancé and come back alone. That accidents happened. Then she laughed. She said it light-heartedly. I don’t think she meant anything by it, but . . . .”

                “Now you’re wondering if she was only half joking?”

                “No, like I said. I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”

                “But now her boyfriend in Reykjavík has been found dead.”

                “I just wanted you to know. I’m sure she didn’t mean anything by it. [. . .] There’s something about her, something that draws men to her, though I can’t put my finger on it,” the man said in parting. “Some kind of spell that makes you do anything she wants. I wouldn’t trust a word she says, but whether she’d go so far . . . .”

                “Well,” said Thorson, “we’ll see.” (pages 258–259)

Later, when Thorson talks to Vera, he wonders what she is capable of after hearing what the blacksmith had to say about her.

                Thorson didn’t immediately answer [Vera]. He thought of the blacksmith and his encounters with her [Vera] in the smithy, and although his own interests didn’t lie that way, he could see why the man had fallen for her. How she’d got Billy [Wiggins, the British soldier] eating out of her hand. Why it wouldn’t take her long to hook a GI, fresh off the boat, if she had a mind to. Everything she did was on her own terms. The only question in Thorson’s mind was how far she’d be willing to go to get what she wanted. (page 285)

Vera isn’t the only suspect in the murder investigation. Flóvent and Thorson also have questions about Felix Lunden. Is Felix a double agent working for the Nazis? Was he the murderer’s real target? Did his father and uncle also work as spies and train Felix for his secret work? Hans Lunden, Felix’s uncle, is interested in helping the Nazis, and Icelandic literature is what draws him initially to Iceland:

Brynhildur [Hólm] took another sip of water, then explained that Hans [Lunden] was an admirer of the sagas with their descriptions of warriors and feats of great prowess and daring. He had immersed himself in the country’s medieval texts, including the Eddic poems, with their Norse myths and tales of the ancient Germanic past. To him, the heroic forebears of the Icelanders were supermen by modern standards, and he dreamt of recreating them. He conducted anthropological research into Nordic racial superiority at an institute set up by Himmler in Berlin, as part of the Ahnenerbe, or Ancestral Heritage Group. That was why he had come to Iceland in ’39. Hans had been confident that when war broke out, the Germans would occupy Iceland and then it would be possible to embark on serious genetic and anthropological studies of the Icelandic population, of their Germanic heritage and Viking blood—the very origins of the Icelanders. Hans had intended to direct the project himself. Rudolf [Hans’s brother] was to be his right-hand man. (pages 266–267)

Although literature doesn’t play nearly as large a role in The Shadow Killer as it did in the first book in the series, it still gets a mention, and it still has some significance in the narrative.

It’s a bit of a twist to have the first book in the series (The Shadow District) be, in actuality, the final installment as far as the narrative’s time line is concerned, the final installment as far as Flóvent and Thorson are concerned. But both The Shadow District and The Shadow Killer have piqued my curiosity, and I plan to read more books when they are available in English translation. I want to see how each novel, each case, fits into the overarching puzzle of the entire series. And maybe the questions I had after reading the first book in the series will be answered as I go along.

I did my best to find any new novels in the series that might be coming in English translation before I posted this entry to my blog. Apparently at least one more novel is in the works; click here for more information about the author’s plans. The article is a little dated, and you will have to read (or scroll down) to find the discussion, but Indridason does talk about a third novel in the series. I do hope English-language readers will be able to enjoy it, too.

The Shadow District (Book) (2017)

The Shadow District, by Arnaldur Indridason

Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

New York, NY: Minotaur Books, 2017

Originally published in Iceland with the title Skuggasund in 2013

List of main characters:

Stephan Thorson/Stefán Thórdarson

Flóvent

Ingiborg Ísleifsdóttir

Konrád

Rósamunda

Hrund, the woman from the north

The Shadow District: Murder, Folktales, Women’s Issues

I’m repeating the copy on the inside front cover flap of The Shadow District for two reasons: (1) It sums up the plot rather well, and (2) I found the “missing link” the most compelling feature of this new book from Arnaldur Indridason, although the term is not used in the novel that I can recall. In any case, here is the inside front cover copy:

THE PAST: In wartime Reykjavik, Iceland, 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 ninety-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrád, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings in the dead man’s home about the World War II Shadow District murder. It’s a crime that Konrád remembers, having grown up in the same neighborhood.

A MISSING LINK: Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? Will Konrád’s link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of World War II Reykjavik to rest?

I read The Shadow District in three or four days because I was completely absorbed by the narrative, which skillfully interweaves the two stories, one from the past, during World War II, and one from the present. But a day or two after I finished reading the novel, I found myself thinking about the so-called missing link more and more. The missing link comes in the form of a folktale: The man who rapes two women tells them both that they can blame the huldufólk, “or ‘hidden people,’ as the elves were known (page 40),” for his crimes. These clues from the killer are revealed in roundabout ways, but two detectives working on the past case and one working on the present case use these clues to pursue their respective investigations.

The English translation reveals simple, clear prose about heartbreaking stories. The author lets the characters reveal plot details in their own time. A total of three investigators, two from the past and one from the present, are honest and hardworking: They are simply trying to get at the truth.

Flóvent saw the instant recognition. Saw from the way the hope died in their eyes that she [Rósamunda] was their missing daughter. (page 62)

I thought these last two lines, the last paragraph, from Chapter 10, told from the point of view of one of the investigators from the past, summed up the mood of the novel: the despair over the loss of a child and the sympathy and compassion that the investigators felt in finding justice for the parents of the victim.

The tension builds, not so much because of a sense of violence to come but because the narrative follows the uncovering of secrets and clues in both plot threads that are obviously connected across time. The Shadow District is more than a story about two related murder investigations, however. It’s a story about social upheaval as a result of World War II, the societal changes that some welcomed and others feared, and the ways that women dealt with these changes while being blamed for them.

Very early in the novel, in Chapter 2, Indridason explains for readers what living in Reykjavik, Iceland, was like after the start of World War II:

. . . At the beginning of the war Reykjavik had had a population of forty thousand, but since then tens of thousands of servicemen had poured into the town. Liaisons between soldiers and Icelandic women were inevitable with the arrival of the Tommies [British soldiers], and they rapidly increased in number when the Tommies were succeeded by the Yanks, who, with smarter uniforms, more money and better manners, were almost like film stars to the locals. Language was no barrier—the language of romance was universal. But such was the resulting moral panic that a committee was set up to deal with this scandalous state of affairs which came to be known, in all its manifestations, as the Situation. (pages 7–8)

World War II brought social upheaval for the citizens of Reykjavik, as one might expect. The influx of so many foreign soldiers turned everything upside down, and women were able to take advantage of the changes in many ways. They found new romantic partners, and they found employment in the war industries. The economic freedom that came with steady work and a steady paycheck meant that women had more choices, and some men in Iceland, and the killer in particular, resented the changes.

(This blog post about the novel The Shadow District contains spoilers.)

The killer hijacks Icelandic folktales to defend his crimes against two women. Indridason, the author, makes the case, through the chief suspect, Jónatan (in the first murder investigation during World War II), for Icelandic folktales being the creation of women. They were handed down by women, from mother to daughter, as a way to deal with the harsh realities of their lives in Iceland. Jónatan is studying Icelandic and history, and he knows a lot about Icelandic folktales. He also has some insight into their utility for women. He discusses what he knows with Thorson and Flóvent, the two detectives investigating the case in the past:

“Yes. Of course. Not that I’m [Jónatan] familiar with the type of malevolence you’re referring to in tales of the huldufólk. After all, they’re mostly told by women, passed down from mother to daughter. That’s essentially how they’ve survived. And because they’ve been kept alive by women, they reflect a female view of the world, feature concerns close to their hearts. They tend to be stories about faithless lovers, childbearing, the exposure of infants.”

                “Exposure of infants?” queried Flóvent.

                “Some things don’t change much.”

                “What do you mean?” asked Thorson.

                Jónatan looked from one of them to the other, seeking to make himself understood. “The stories often describe the harsh lot of women. Such as giving birth to a child out of wedlock and being forced to dispose of it. Exposure of infants was the abortion of its day. Naturally it would have been a harrowing experience and huldufólk stories were a way of glossing over the harsh reality and easing the mental anguish. They offered an alternative world in which women have children with handsome, gentle men of the hidden race, who are the antithesis of their brutish human counterparts. The infants are left out in the open for their fathers to find, and grow up, cherished, among their father’s people, and may even return one day to the human world. In other words, the stories serve to alleviate a destressing experience.”

                “Handsome, gentle men?” repeated Thorson.

                “Like the Yanks,” said Jónatan.

                “Are they the new huldufólk?”

                “In a manner of speaking.”

                “How do you feel about that?” asked Thorson.

                                “Me? I don’t have an opinion.” (pages 231–232)

Jónatan’s knowledge and insight are exactly what bring him to the attention of Thorson and Flóvent. Only someone who knows a lot about Icelandic folklore would have used the information to convince two women to lie about what had happened to them.

If I have any complaint about The Shadow District, it’s that the novel and the stories about the various women in it are told almost always from the perspective of male characters. It’s not a major complaint because I found the compassion displayed by most of the male characters refreshing. But the women, especially the older women, are often portrayed as angry and cranky, with the men reacting as though their feelings are inappropriate. Here’s an example from the end of the novel, when the detective Konrád talks to his sister Beta about their father, who was a petty criminal and a domestic abuser:

                “It’s called domestic violence, Konrád. She [their mother] fled all the way east to Seydisfjördur. He only hung on to you to get even with her. That was typical. He was a nasty piece of work, Konrád. He drank, he was violent and got sucked into crime.”

                “I know all that, I was there, remember? It was ugly, and I’ve never forgiven him for what he did to Mum.”

                “Yet you’ve always tried to defend him! You’re always trying to find excuses for him. Like that Benjamín did, and his father before him.”

                “That’s not the same—”

                “Yes, it is,” said Beta. “You bloody men, you’re all the same. Too bloody spineless to face up to the truth.”

                                “Calm down,” said Konrád. (pages 340–341)

Beta has many good reasons for being angry with her father, and her brother Konrád doesn’t sound like he’s willing to take her seriously when he tells her to calm down. But this exchange comes at the end of the novel, which is promised to be the first in a series, presumably about the detective Konrád. Is it possible that Konrád will understand his sister’s point of view in future installments?

Will Indridason continue the themes introduced in this first book in the series? Will he continue to use folktales and allow female characters, instead of men, to interpret them for readers? The way that Indridason ends the novel is both a final wrap-up and perhaps a clue about where he intends to go next:

Deep in a remote cleft in the lava, too deep for the roar of the waterfall to reach, lies the realm of eternal cold and darkness. The cleft narrows as it deepens, its rugged walls sheer and perilous, its depths inaccessible even to raven and fox. The walls are over grown with ferns and mosses, down which water seeps from the nearby springs, transforming the fissure into a fairy-tale palace in frosty weather. At the bottom a cold silence reigns, which neither the moaning of the wind nor the crying of birds can break, ensuring that the palace’s only guest, the unfortunate elf maiden, never wakes from her long sleep. (page 344)

These last lines (which form both the last paragraph and the last chapter) bring readers back to the folktale theme—the missing link—that held my attention while reading The Shadow District and left me wondering once I finished. I want to read the next installment to see if any of my questions are answered.

The next book in the series, The Shadow Killer, will be published in March 2018 in English translation (click here for more information). Click here for more information at Wikipedia about the author Arnaldur Indridason.