Au cœur de la seconde guerre mondiale, l’Islande sert de tête de pont aux armées britanniques puis américaines face à l’Allemagne. La rumeur d’une visite de Churchill se met alors à circuler à Reykjavik. Espionnage, contre-espionnage, assassinats… un roman, premier d’une trilogie, à l’action relativement lente mais cependant prenante, aux personnages plus complexes qu’il n’y paraît et qui plonge le lecteur dans une réalité historique peu connue. ( )

Prequel to Shadow District and very much the same thing. More Icelandic local colour and some good plot twists. Wth the theme being spying not everything is cleared up at the end ( )

Il faut quelques chapitres pour se mettre dans l’ambiance et oublier que l’intrigue n’est pas ancrée dans le contemporain comme les autres romans policiers nordiques à succès. Dans l’ombre islandaise, terre neutre, mais lieu stratégique, se manigance la guerre entre Alliés et nazis. Espionnage, contre-espionnage, meurtre. Les deux enquêteurs engagés méritent de l’intérêt, mais on aurait aimé en connaître davantage sur cette île de glace et de feu aux conditions d’existence éprouvantes. Le suspens est limité et une fin non ultime contraint à la lecture des deux volumes qui succèdent à ce premier livre. Affaire à suivre.

Sous forme de haïku :

Dans l’ombre islandaise,
Se terrent Alliés et nazis,
Que sonnent la guerre. ( )

* I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to review this book. *

Indridason returns to wartime Reykjavik with The Shadow Killer. An Icelandic salesman is found murdered in an apartment, shot by a US service weapon. This fact convinces detective Flovent to involve Thorsen, a Canadian member of the US military policy (whom we met in The Shadow District). While Thorsen is detailed to help with the investigation, his military superiors are also placing pressure on him.

The investigation soon turns up Nazi connections with the owner of the flat, who cannot be located. Another possible angle is the victim's girlfriend, who appears to be involved in The Situation. (This refers to the Icelandic women who took up with foreign soldiers during the war. It's made clearer in The Shadow District, but Indridason should have repeated that background here for people who have not read the first book).

As always, this is a good plot with a few surprises, but I felt that the pacing was a bit ordinary and the switching of viewpoints between the two investigators each chapter felt a bit routine. There is nobody in this book, or its predecessor, that is remotely as compelling as Indridason's great character, Erlendur. I don't think Indridason is at the top of his game here; there is so much more that he could be doing with this material. ( )

Murder during the Blessed War
Review of the Harvill Secker hardcover (March 15, 2018) translated by Victoria Cribb from the Icelandic language original "Þýska húsið" (The German House) (December 1, 2015)

This was a police procedural set during the Allied Occupation of Iceland during the Second World War. Iceland had declared its neutrality at the start of the war. With the German takeover of Denmark (of which Iceland was still a territory at the time), Britain felt that it couldn't risk losing its mid-Atlantic port of Iceland to a further German invasion and instigated its own takeover. This was gradually phased into an American and Canadian occupation when British forces were required back home. Icelanders refer to this period as the Blessað Stríðið (Icelandic: Blessed War or Lovely War) and the consequent fraternization of Allied troops with Icelandic women as the Ástandið (Icelandic: The Situation).

Although The Shadow Killer (orig. 2015) is the 2nd of Indriðason's Reykjavik Wartime Mysteries following The Shadow District (orig. 2013), chronologically it is actually documents the first case of Icelandic CID detective Flóvent and Canadian Icelandic military policeman Thorson. A man is found murdered in a Reykjavik apartment with a case of travelling salesman samples. At first he is assumed to be the apartment's occupant Felix Lunden, but the landlady eventually realizes it is a stranger. Felix Lunden himself has gone missing. He is the son of a known Nazi sympatizer Rudolf Lunden and when a German cyanide poison capsule is found in his effects it seems likely that the case relates to espionage. The murdered man was shot with a Colt 45 pistol, a sidearm of the occupation forces, which is why the military police are brought in. Was it a case of mistaken identity or was some sort of lover's triangle involved? Flóvent and Thorson have to uncover various family secrets before the truth is revealed.

I had previously read several of Indriðason's earlier books from his detective series featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson, but eventually grew tired of their angsty tormented Scandi-noir style. Flóvent and Thorson were a much more comfortable partnership. The only angst being a hint that Thorson may have a troubled sexual identity. The setting of wartime Iceland was also unique and it was interesting to learn about the background to the Allied occupation of a 'neutral' country.

The translation by Victoria Cribb, who has 30 books of translation from Icelandic to English to her credit (as of October 2022), read very well.

Trivia and Links
You can read more about translator Victoria Cribb at The Loneliness of the Icelandic Translator, Publishing Perspectives, January 6, 2012 and at One of These Eccentrics Who Came to Iceland and Fell in Love with the Language, Icelandic Literature Centre, October 30, 2018. ( )