The Shadow District

Anyone familiar with Indridason's successful Detective Erlendur series of Icelandic crime novels will not be disappointed with this wartime/present day crime investigation. Equally, readers unfamiliar with Indridason's other works will be delighted to find a rich seam of crime investigation that departs from the all-too-well-trodden police procedurals by a clever use of novel settings; an intriguing use of two parallel narratives that keep the reader abreast of developments in the original 1944 investigation alongside the twenty-first century hunt for a killer; and a series of passing references to Icelandic folk traditions that play a modest part in the developing story. Indridason's ability to secure an empathetic relationship between reader and plot characters is a particular strength in all his work and The Shadow District is no exception. A particularly clever plot device is the setting of the cold case element of the story in the closing years of the Second World War, and the largely forgotten impact of the Allied occupation of Iceland on the lives of ordinary Icelanders