Tainted Blood

Also published as “Jar City”. When a lone septuagenarian is murdered in his apartment in the Nordurmyri district of Reykjavik, detective inspector Erlendur Sveinsson is called in, along with partner Sigurdur Oli and female colleague Elínborg. Everyone is related to everyone else in Iceland and refer to one another by first name, even formally. Erlendur is about 50, long divorced, with two kids in varying degrees of drug addiction. The victim, a man called Holberg, turns out to have been a nasty piece of work, and Erlendur is disgusted by the series of rapes Holberg apparently committed. The rapes and the deaths of a number of young women may be connected, and the search brings Erlendur to the forensic lab, whose old “jar city,” since disbanded, held research organs. Meanwhile, Erlendur’s daughter, Eva Lind, is pregnant and still using; she flits in and out of his life angrily, but may be crying out for help. Reykjavik’s physicality, and the fact that crimes are relatively rare in Iceland, gives things a defamiliarizing cast. Won Glass Key award in 2002 (Nordic crime fiction award). Caution — British spelling.