And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice ( The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Indridason (The Draining Lake, 2008, etc.) and his hero steadily improve with age.Īnother sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.Ī week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Meanwhile, Erlendur’s mentor Marion dies slowly in hospital his daughter Eva Lind continues on the roller-coaster of drug addiction and his relationship with crime-scene tech Valgerdur proceeds in baby steps.Ī beautifully layered mystery notable for its breadth and depth. Erlendur’s other case involves a long unsolved disappearance that springs to life again when he receives anonymous calls from a woman in distress whom he imagines to be the missing party. Since Elías’s murder, Niran has gone missing, placing him on a long list of suspects which also includes Ódinn, racist teacher Kjartan, schoolmates who reportedly sell drugs and Andres, a tightly wound young man found in possession of child porn who blames the ruin of his life on an unnamed person whom he proceeds to stalk. His mother Sunee, who works in a chocolate factory, emigrated to marry the carpenter Ódinn, from whom she’s estranged, partly because of Niran, Elías’s older half-brother, whom Sunee brought over from Thailand after marrying Ódinn. Subtle racial prejudice had made the half-Thai Elías a bit of an outcast. This murder hits inspector Erlendur especially hard because, as a child, he was unable to save his younger brother from drowning while the two were out alone. ![]() The body of nine-year-old Elías is found on a frigid January morning in a garden not far from his school. Soon, facts are emerging from the snow-filled darkness that are more chilling even than the Arctic night.The stabbing of an immigrant child unsettles Reykjavik and its police alike. Meanwhile, the boy's murder forces Erlendur to confront the tragedy in his own past. A teacher at the boy's school makes no secret of his anti-immigration stance incidents are reported between Icelandic pupils and the disaffected children of incomers and, to confuse matters further, a suspected paedophile has been spotted in the area. Is he implicated, or simply afraid for his own life? The investigation soon unearths tensions simmering beneath the surface of Iceland's outwardly liberal, multicultural society. Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation with little to go on but the news that the boy's Thai half-brother is missing. ![]() The discovery of a stab wound in his stomach extinguishes any hope that this was a tragic accident. ![]() On an icy January day the Reykjavik police are called to a block of flats where a body has been found in the garden: a young, dark-skinned boy, frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood.
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