This book ...

I admit, I´m feeling a bit under the weather at the moment and my chronic sinusitis makes me really grumpy, so my criticism might be a bit harsh. Or this book might be that badly written as I perceive it to be.

It starts off with a prologue, in which the authors tries to create an atmosphere:

The red stain was like a scream in the silence.

The snow-covered ground was so white that it had almost banished the winter night´s darkness, elemental in its purity.

[...]

Few people were about. Most people stayed indoors, happy to enjoy the weather from behind a window. It was possible that some of them had decided to stay at home after the death at the Dramatic Society. Tales travelled swiftly and the atmosphere was heavy with suspicion, in spite of the town´s peacuful outward appearance. A bird flying over the town would not have noticed anything unusual, would not have sensed the tension in the air, the uncertainty and even the fear, not unless it had flown over the little black garden in the middle of the town.

The tall trees surroundingthe garden were in the winter finery, taking on shadowy shapes in the darkness that were reminiscent of clowns rather than trolls, decked in delicate white from the ground up, in spite of the snow weighing down some of their branches.

Well, that´s a whole lot of blah, blah, blah. The prologue ends with an injured woman lying in the snow:

She lay in the middle of the garden, like a snow angel.

From a distance she appeared peaceful.

Her arms splayed from her sides. She wore a faded pair of jeans and was naked from the waist up, her long hair around her like a coronet in the snow; snow that shouldn´t be that shade of red.

A pool of blood had formed around her.

Her skin seemed to be failing alarmingly fast, taking on the colour of marble, as if in response to thew striking crimson that surrounded her.

Her lips were blue. Her shallow breath came fast.

She seemed to be looking up into the dark heavens.

Then her eyes snapped shut.

She seems pretty dead to me. How she has enough energy to snap her eyes shut is beyond me, though.

From this point we go about half a year back in time and we get introduced to Ari, former philosophy/theology student, who now is about to become a police officer. He just moved together with his girlfriend in Reykjavik and when Ari takes on a new job in a very remote town in Iceland without asking his girlfriend first, tensions arise between these two. And ... I don´t care. And tbh, these informations about Ari would have fit into a single paragraph, instead the author is droning on about it over three chapters.

He does the same for another character, a woman called Ugla, who apparently has lost her boyfriend and who has befriended an elderly man in the town where she is living now. I don´t know how she ties into the overall story (which at this point still is non-existent) and quite frankly, I don´t care.

And then there are some weird chapters in between, in which a women apparently gets held at knife point. Don´t know who that woman is, either. And again, I don´t care.

One less book on my physical shelf, one more book for charity.

Next. 

Siglufjörður is a fishing village in Northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors and "nothing ever happens" according to the chief of police who has been there forever. Even better, it's accessible only via tunnel and frequently snowed in because of avalanches. Enter Ari Thór Arason -- who will finish his exams and training here. At most he's a supposedly talented rookie on his first posting, far from Reykjavik where's he's been at school and lived with his almost-doctor girlfriend.

Sounds ripe for mystery and crime, no? Also, it's not New York or London or Shanghai or Moscow or any of the usual suspects we find in police procedurals or mysteries. I loved the idea.

Unfortunately, this novel felt like so much set-up for a series, and I have a pet peeve about writers doing that. I'm eventually going to read the second one, but I will admit I don't have high hopes, and I will borrow it from the library.

A lot was just unrealistic about the plot of this "mystery." First of all our hero is so young as to not even have finished his training when he moves to the town where he's been told "nothing ever happens" and in short order solves a twisted and complex bunch of crimes. Those crimes aren't even being acknowledged by the police that have been in the town forever, but our young almost-cop figures it all out without any help and with seemingly very little trouble or time.

Then there was this weird extraneous romantic plot which I'd be willing to bet a lot of money will resolve in one certain direction in the next book. The whole thing was very A-B-C, but not even that orderly. Come on, mystery writers, challenge me!

I must be missing something here. "Snowblind" attracts lots of four and five-star reviews and is the first book in the best-selling "Dark Iceland" quintet, yet I found it fundamentally unsatisfying.

I'm told the language is poetic. I can see that it's trying to be. I quite liked the way in which Jonasson expresses the soft oppression of never-ending snow in phrases like

    "The freezing darkness swallowed him up."

and

    "He had tried to listen to classical music to drown out the deafening silence of the incessant snowfall, but it was as if the music magnified the gloom."

It works but it's not exceptional.

I'm familiar with snow and deep cold and the claustrophobia that living beneath a mountain can bring. They're well captured here but not well enough to sustain the book.

The plot stretches my willingness to suspend disbelief and the way in which our young policeman unravelled the secrets seemed to me too hard to swallow. The man isn't just intuitive, he's psychic.

I think the heart of my dissatisfaction with this book is the policeman Ari Thor. I could not find a reason to care for him. He seems an empty man. He starts many things but finishes none. He ties himself in knots about integrity and gets indignant about love and yet is too weak to live to either standard. I know he's young but if he's that callow, where's the interest?

If you fancy a Miss Marple in the snow, set around an Icelandic village drama society rather than an English one and with modern accents, local colour and the occasional stab at the lyrical, then this is the book for you.

I'm sure it would make great television. All the moody camera work and mournful atonal music could fill the gaps where the rest of the novel should be.

I had a similar reaction to Ann Cleaves' "Raven Black" and that made great television and has a huge fan base so perhaps I'm just not equipped to savour this kind of book.

I don't think that's going to change so I'll pass on the rest of the "Dark Iceland" quintet.

Vamos ahora con esta muy entretenida novela, que se desarrolla en un pueblecito de a tomar por **** de Islandia. El protagonista es Ari Thor, una especie de policía en prácticas que recibe una oferta de trabajo como poli en el pueblecito del culo de la loma que comentaba antes. Ni corto ni perezoso, deja en Rejkiavik a su novia Kristin (que estudia una especie de MIR), y se pira a defender la ley y el orden.

En ese pueblecito, en el que no pasa nunca nada, pues es llegar él y pasar. Justetetament es llegar y tener que enfrentarse a un apuñalamiento que parece un caso de violencia doméstica, y a una caída por unas escaleras que parece accidental. Ya no desvelo más ni de lo uno ni de lo otro.

La novela tiene muchas reminiscencias (qué bien que escribo, qué dominio del lenguaje, una cosa...) a Agatha Christie. Eso de que de la nada aparezcan hijos ilegítimos, padres olvidados, madres un poco sordas... es muy de ella. El autor, Ragnar Jonasson, ha traducido al islandés las novelas de la Christie, y parece ser que, como es normal, se le ha pegado el estilo.

A mí me ha entretenido mucho, si bien es cierto que al principio prometía más. En cualquier caso, lo del pueblo siempre nevado que hace un frío que pela es interesante, hay un poquito de todo en la novela, y además está en un inglés muy asequible.

La recomiendo, pero sin pasarme.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via my blogging friend Liz Barnsley at Lizlovesbooks and this is my honest opinion of the book.

Ari Thor, about to graduate from the police academy, accepts a job from the chief of police in Siglufjörður. Leaving behind his disgruntled girlfriend, he finds himself in a place surrounded by mountains and edged by the sea. The only exit, a narrow mountain tunnel. He finds it hard to settle, being told that nothing ever happens; everyone knows each other and doors are kept unlocked. The only thing to sort out are the occasional speeding tickets or the odd drunk. So when an elderly local celebrity is found dead after a fall in the local theatre Ari Thor is soon told that this is nothing more than accident. Doubt nags at Ari Thor and when a young woman is found bleeding in the snow things it soon becomes clear, things aren't all as they seem.

I don't want to go into too much detail as to the mystery side of the story. To do so would spoil the enjoyment of finding out for yourself and runs the risk of me giving too much away.

The chapters alternate between characters which enables the story to be about more than just Ari Thor. The fact that the story is not told solely from his viewpoint works well. The reader is invited into the lives of the residents in a way that Ari Thor, an outsider, is not. This gives even more of a sense of danger and menace to the story but also a different dynamic.

There is something almost hauntingly melancholic about this story. The claustrophobia felt by Ari Thor is palpable. You can almost feel the walls of snow caging you in and the sense of almost perpetual winter darkness makes you reach for the light switch. There is also an air of menace which is juxtaposes the almost 'cosy' feel to the mystery. The tale is set in a small town, where doors are kept unlocked and everyone knows everyone else. Yet secrets lurk behind those unlocked doors and outsiders like Ari Thor sense what is almost hidden from view.

The imagery used in the book is immediate. Though I read this in June I found myself shivering and the descriptions of the unremitting darkness of the 24 hour 'nights' are superbly effective, making me forget that around me the days were the longest they are all year.

Quentin Bates' translation is outstanding. Again I forgot I was reading a piece of translated fiction and I've said before that I believe the sign of a great translator is that you cannot tell the work you are reading is translated. Nothing felt jarred or out of place. The sense of tension, danger and oppression flowed throughout.

I was easily transported to Iceland and the book left me a longing to return. There is a desolate beauty to the country which is echoed in Snowblind. I'm looking forward to reading more by Ragnar Jonasson.