Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Shadow Killer
Arnaldur Indridason
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Shadow Killer
Arnaldur Indridason
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Shadow Killer, by Arnaldur Indridason . A traveling salesman returns home to Iceland to find his girl friend Vera is gone from their apartment. He is later found shot, executed style, in the back, a swastika drawn in blood on his forehead. Flovent, the only detective in this small town, with military policeman Thorson, is on the job to find the perpetrator. The Americans occupy the city and Winston Churchill is expected to visit soon. Icelandic mysteries are filled with action and this one has action from the start.
But wait a minute: it is not the salesman who is dead but an unknown man on the floor of the salesman’s apartment. The two detectives have a difficult task ahead. To identify the dead man and to find the salesman. First, they find a cyanide pill hidden in the lining of a samples case. Why would the salesman carry a cyanide pill with him? Flóvent and Thorson, who combined have no real formal experience investigating a murder case, follow their hunch that the killer was another local businessman, named Felix Lunden. Unable to locate Felix, the duo heads to his father’s house, where they speak with Dr. Rudolph Lunden. Rudolph, is confined to a wheelchair and has a caretaker. Flovent asks a barrage of questions after arresting him. The wholesaler worries that the salesman may have taken off with the merchandise and not paid him for the goods sold. And why wasn’t Rudolph deported with the other Germans to Britain when he was an influential member of the nationalist party?
Genetic studies were being conducted at a University in Iceland and in Germany at Buchenwald concentration camp. Flovent and Thorsen visit Rudolph’s brother, Ebenezer. He evades the questions, gives vague answers. There are German, American, and British soldiers in this Icelandic city now. Vera is sleeping with soldiers in the town and taking in laundry to support herself. Flovent sees a photo of a University class in which he recognizes Felix and the murdered man. Also in the photo is a woman, Brynhildur Holm, who now keeps house for Rudolph. Among her belongings are books about selective breeding. Was she involved in this experiment along with the German consul? This group believed that criminal behavior was inherited and tested the boys at the school who came from dysfunctional families. Icelandic authors plum the depths of their subjects.
There are many questions here: was Felix a German spy? Are the Germans coming to pick him up by ship? Why was he carrying a cyanide pill in his suitcase? Why was the murdered man’s forehead marked with a swastika? Find out what they learn on the new mystery shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
But wait a minute: it is not the salesman who is dead but an unknown man on the floor of the salesman’s apartment. The two detectives have a difficult task ahead. To identify the dead man and to find the salesman. First, they find a cyanide pill hidden in the lining of a samples case. Why would the salesman carry a cyanide pill with him? Flóvent and Thorson, who combined have no real formal experience investigating a murder case, follow their hunch that the killer was another local businessman, named Felix Lunden. Unable to locate Felix, the duo heads to his father’s house, where they speak with Dr. Rudolph Lunden. Rudolph, is confined to a wheelchair and has a caretaker. Flovent asks a barrage of questions after arresting him. The wholesaler worries that the salesman may have taken off with the merchandise and not paid him for the goods sold. And why wasn’t Rudolph deported with the other Germans to Britain when he was an influential member of the nationalist party?
Genetic studies were being conducted at a University in Iceland and in Germany at Buchenwald concentration camp. Flovent and Thorsen visit Rudolph’s brother, Ebenezer. He evades the questions, gives vague answers. There are German, American, and British soldiers in this Icelandic city now. Vera is sleeping with soldiers in the town and taking in laundry to support herself. Flovent sees a photo of a University class in which he recognizes Felix and the murdered man. Also in the photo is a woman, Brynhildur Holm, who now keeps house for Rudolph. Among her belongings are books about selective breeding. Was she involved in this experiment along with the German consul? This group believed that criminal behavior was inherited and tested the boys at the school who came from dysfunctional families. Icelandic authors plum the depths of their subjects.
There are many questions here: was Felix a German spy? Are the Germans coming to pick him up by ship? Why was he carrying a cyanide pill in his suitcase? Why was the murdered man’s forehead marked with a swastika? Find out what they learn on the new mystery shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.