Voices

No, this isnt an entry to report that I have been hearing strange voices in my head… rather it’s an entry to record that I recently completed the third novel by Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason which is titled “Voices”. Indridason’s novels are what are called “police procedurals” in that they basically follow in a fair amount of detail the police process of investigating a murder from the point of the discovery of the body to the final resolution of the case. In Indridason’s books the main character is a detective called Erlendur who has a failed marriage, two drug addict children and a whole host of personal pyschological difficulties. This particular novel follows a murder commited in a tourist hotel just before the busy Christmas period and I found the whole set-up and the plot to be rather grim and populated by rather sordid characters. Erlendur doesn’t really do that much and he doesn’t have any great flashes of inspiration to unlock a startling twist in the plot but the story gradually unfolds and Erlendur gets the job done. I really liked the first of Indridason’s novels (“Tainted Blood”) but although I enjoyed reading this one I’m not convinced that this series is quite as good as the general acclaim it seems to get.