In the past 12 months I've read crime novels and thrillers set in places as far afield as Bangkok, Australia, Venice, Los Angeles and London. Irrespective of the architectural or physical backdrop of these books, they share one thing in common: crime, and it is usually murder, covers everything with a uniform film of misery like the ash that settles over a home after a fire.
Why I enjoy this, I have no idea. Perhaps it is the mystery and the interactivity these stories offer in terms of trying to figure out "whodunnit" or how the tale ends. Perhaps it is the escapism, after all, these books are works of fiction, and even though I know and fully understand that writers are often picking up real life horror stories and simply reflecting them in their words, there is some comfort to be taken from the illusion. (I could never bring myself to a read a book by Dave Pelzer, the survivor of childhood abuse, or any other of the catalogue of misery autobiographies out there, however much I might admire their honesty and bravery in committing their dark experiences to paper).
But most of it, probably, is simply the great writing, the cleverness with words, the wonderful story-telling and the arresting insights offered into the human condition, which is exposed with such transparency in the most desperate of situations.
Part of it, however, is the small glimpse into other lands and other cultures. In one sense, it doesn't matter one jot whether the story is set in New Iberia or Newcastle: the pain of the victim, the evil of the murderer and the frustration and ingenuity of the cops. But on the other hand, the ability to bring a place to life, to make it a part of the scene on the artists' canvass rather than it being merely the canvas itself, is a gift and one that helps to separate the great from the very good.
All of which is a long-winded way of saying that part of the genius of Arnaldur Indridason's quite brilliant novel Silence of the Grave (recently published in paperback by Picador USA) is that he brings Rekjavik to life so vividly that I can see the view from the house on the hill that is central to the story every time I close my eyes.
In this context, this is very important. I've never been to Iceland and my views on it are entirely based on a series of London Tube adverts a couple of years ago showing a lot of beautiful, blonde people sitting in natural hot spas looking very relaxed. It's not a lot to go on.
But Indridason paints the harsh landscape with its dark winters and endless summer sunlight in the context of the struggle of its people to understand it and survive it, and makes it a living, breathing entity, influencing the story as much as any other factor. Iceland and the Icelanders seemed utterly inseparable in a way that is not common in much crime fiction where it would not be difficult to imagine lifting a plot and all of its characters entirely free from one locale and dumping them into another without the story losing a beat.
And this despite the fact that Indridason has picked a simple variant of a classic story: bones are uncovered dating back about six decades. Delving into them and their history, Inspector Erlendur, a dour, lonely, Wallanderesque policeman unearths a couple of tragic family stories, which may explain the origins of the bones, which are being painstakingly unearthed by a team of archeologists.
This modern story runs in parallel with the story of a young man and woman who marry before the war, a relationship which then become a brutal, merciless catalogue of physical and emotional abuse on the wife, who only eventually finds release when her husband is jailed for stealing supplies from a US Army base and selling them on the black market.
As Erlendur investigates the bones he also has to deal with the life-threatening collapse of his estranged, drug-addicted daughter. Between them, the three plots are a powerful reminder that while the nature and the circumstances of our problems may have changed, the path of life in general, and family life in particular, is neither simple nor uncomplicated. Without work, with ill luck, and with very little prompting, humanity's fragile grip on life, love and happiness can be destroyed forever.
Indridason's command of his plot is of the highest order. The story gathers momentum at all the right moments as the two central storylines collide. The 1940s story in particular is utterly spell-binding. The depiction of the abuse suffered by the woman - who, I do not think is ever named, which is clever in itself as she is afforded no protection or status by Icelandic authorities - is horrendously powerful (and comes very close to shattering the illusion described above). I'm not sure I breathed at all as I read the scene in which the husband returns home from prison to confront his wife for her suspected infidelity and treachery, as her cowering children watch on.
Some of the credit for this work must go to Bernard Scudder, the translator who found a way to turn the original Icelandic into this simple, perfect prose. But most of it is reserved for Indridason himself, a champion among European thriller writers, and a man whose work I hope to read a great deal more of.