Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Draining Lake
Arnaldur Indridason
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Draining Lake
Arnaldur Indridason
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Draining Lake, by Arnaldur Indridaso, is about a lake in Iceland that is getting lower and lower. Hydrologists are studying it. A skeleton of a man is discovered on the dry bank. How old is it? Who is it? Who would know? Murder?
Erlendur is the protagonist, handsome and single. A Russian radio transmitter is found attached to the skeleton. It was there to weigh the body down. Erlendur investigates men who had gone missing in the 1960s. One was a salesperson who went on long trips. His girlfriend still waits for him.
Erlendur’s son, Sindri, comes to stay with him. They talk of Sindri’s sister, Eva Lind, and Erlendur’s missing brother who had disappeared during a mountain climbing expedition with Erlendur. Erlendur returns year after year to look for his brother. This is, no doubt, why he looks for other missing people with the police department. Erlendur and Elinborg, his female colleague who is writing a cookbook, go to see the First Secretary at the Russian Embassy. He rudely tells them he knows nothing about Russian spies or transmitters.
A man who has disappeared outside the bus station had owned a black Ford Falcon. Erlendur tries to find it. We meet Tomas, who, when he was younger, was on his way up in the Communist party in Iceland. He was sent to East Germany to study at the University there. He met Ilona, from Hungary. She tries to tell him the truth about Stalin and the party, about the surveillance and the lack of free speech. Later, Erlendur visits the Russian embassy, thinks the skeleton may have been a spy in the 1960s during the Cold War, but not an Icelandic spy, a foreign one.
Tomas, meanwhile, is told by Lothar in Leipzig to stay away from Ilona and to spy on the meetings she goes to. Lothar had connections with the KGB in Moscow, had gone to Iceland, and not returned to Germany. Ilona is arrested as a spy, Tomas never stops looking for her. Does Tomas ever find her? How do the Icelandic students figure in this mix in Iceland and in Leipzig? Were they all spies? Does Erlundur find out the truth? Author Indridason weaves together the history of the Cold War with the mystery of the skeleton in the lake. It’s a fascinating story. Find it on the shelf in the fiction room with many of Indridason’s other books at your Mendocino Community Library.
Erlendur is the protagonist, handsome and single. A Russian radio transmitter is found attached to the skeleton. It was there to weigh the body down. Erlendur investigates men who had gone missing in the 1960s. One was a salesperson who went on long trips. His girlfriend still waits for him.
Erlendur’s son, Sindri, comes to stay with him. They talk of Sindri’s sister, Eva Lind, and Erlendur’s missing brother who had disappeared during a mountain climbing expedition with Erlendur. Erlendur returns year after year to look for his brother. This is, no doubt, why he looks for other missing people with the police department. Erlendur and Elinborg, his female colleague who is writing a cookbook, go to see the First Secretary at the Russian Embassy. He rudely tells them he knows nothing about Russian spies or transmitters.
A man who has disappeared outside the bus station had owned a black Ford Falcon. Erlendur tries to find it. We meet Tomas, who, when he was younger, was on his way up in the Communist party in Iceland. He was sent to East Germany to study at the University there. He met Ilona, from Hungary. She tries to tell him the truth about Stalin and the party, about the surveillance and the lack of free speech. Later, Erlendur visits the Russian embassy, thinks the skeleton may have been a spy in the 1960s during the Cold War, but not an Icelandic spy, a foreign one.
Tomas, meanwhile, is told by Lothar in Leipzig to stay away from Ilona and to spy on the meetings she goes to. Lothar had connections with the KGB in Moscow, had gone to Iceland, and not returned to Germany. Ilona is arrested as a spy, Tomas never stops looking for her. Does Tomas ever find her? How do the Icelandic students figure in this mix in Iceland and in Leipzig? Were they all spies? Does Erlundur find out the truth? Author Indridason weaves together the history of the Cold War with the mystery of the skeleton in the lake. It’s a fascinating story. Find it on the shelf in the fiction room with many of Indridason’s other books at your Mendocino Community Library.