Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indriðason

As this miserable heatwave was descending upon us, I figured it would be a good idea to read a book that may take my mind from the desert-like conditions. Arnaldur Indriðason's Hypothermia was on my shelf and it takes place in ICEland so I figured I just couldn't do better than that. Unfortunately, there's precious little cold, rain, and snow to be had. Instead I found myself immersed in a mystery imbued with a very large dose of psychological drama.

Hypothermia is the eighth book in the Detective Erlendur series. I’d seen the movie version of the third installment, Jar City, so I had an idea of what to expect. However, I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to be missing anything that had occurred in the previous books.

Here a woman named Maria is found hanging at the end of a rope at the summer cottage belonging to her and her husband Baldvin. Detective Erlendur drives out to Lake Thingvellier and concludes that it is a cut-and-dry suicide. He is ready to leave it at that but is approached by a friend of Maria’s named Karen who gives Erlendur a tape which contains a recording of a séance that Maria had attended. She was desperate to contact the spirit of her mother who had died a couple years previously. Erlendur’s curiosity is piqued and he begins to suspect that there’s more to Maria’s death than meets the eye. His suspicions are aroused after interviewing Baldvin.

But he has little more than suspicions. His attention is distracted by the visit of a man who comes seeking an update on a very cold case. The man’s son, David, went missing some 20 years ago and his body was never found. Yet the man returns once a year to find out if anything new has turned up and nothing ever does. The man is getting old and this is to be his last inquiry. Erlendur feels terribly for him. Not only did he lose his son, but he will get no closure before he too passes on.

This and his own personal tales of loss spurs him on to reopen the old case. When he was a boy, he and his brother were out in a blizzard and only Erlendur survived. Furthermore, Erlendur was not the greatest father to his children, daughter Eva and son Sindri. He left them after divorcing their mother. The idea of family ties and a desire to provide closure for others, even if he cannot do so for his own family as a tendentious meeting with his ex-wife proves, drives Erlendur to pursue both Maria and David’s cases.

Although both deaths are linked rather coincidentally, it is a tenuous connection so Indriðason can be forgiven. The story moves along well. Erlendur interviews more of Maria’s family and friends and uncovers a Flatliners-esque subplot which keeps the reader pondering whether Maria’s death was really a suicide or not until the very end. They mystery aside, Hypothermia is in keeping in the Scandinavian crime fiction tradition of having an overall mood of melancholy. There are the deaths and grieving families, sure, but Erlendur was party to a failed marriage and was a less than stellar father. Eva is a recovering addict and they are unable to set their relationship on solid footing as they always bicker. To make the proceedings even more doleful, Indriðason makes sure that the resolution to David’s disappearance comes just after his father passes away.

Hypothermia is certainly a depressing story yet it has an intriguing mystery behind it. Plus the multiple strands examining the familial and emotional ties that bind us to one another elevate it above simpler, more straightforward detective stories. My only reservation is Indriðason’s writing style. It is austere, to say the least. People who can’t handle purple prose will be thoroughly satisfied. Descriptions are utilitarian and I couldn’t help but feel that an occasional metaphor would have done the text good. This is purely a matter of taste, however, so don’t let some pedestrian prose distract you from a good mystery/drama.