Wie is de dode man die wordt gevonden in een benedenwoning in de wijk Noorderveen in Reykjavík? Waarom laat de moordenaar een geheimzinnige boodschap achter? Rechercheur Erlendur en zijn jongere collega Sigurdur Óli proberen de verschrikkelijke tragedie te ontrafelen, die zonder het moderne DNA-onderzoek verborgen zou zijn gebleven.
A corpse is found on a hill outside the city, and Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson and his team think the body may have been buried for some years. While Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family, slowly but surely he finds out the truth about another unhappy family. Few people are still alive who can tell the tale, but even secrets taken to the grave cannot remain hidden forever.
When a lonely old man is found murdered in his Reykjavík flat, the only clues are a cryptic note left by the killer and a photograph of a young girl’s grave. Inspector Erlendur, who heads the investigation team, discovers that many years ago the victim was accused, though not convicted, of an unsolved crime. Did the old man’s past come back to haunt him? As the team of detectives reopen this very cold case, Inspector Erlendur uncovers secrets that are much larger than the murder of one old man--secrets that have been carefully guarded by many people for many years. As he follows a fascinating trail of unusual forensic evidence, Erlendur also confronts stubborn personal conflicts that reveal his own depth and complexity of character.
The third novel in the award-winning Reykjavik Murder Mysteries. The Christmas rush is under way in a big Reykjavik hotel when the police are called to the scene of a murder. The hotel doorman (and long-time resident of its basement) has been stabbed to death. With the hotel fully booked, the manager is desperate to keep the murder under wraps and his reputation intact. Detectives Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli discover that the dead man had had a childhood brush with fame and that two old 45s on which he had sung have become prized collectors’ items. Estranged from his family for decades, why had the man continued to pay secret visits to his boyhood home? As Detective Elinborg investigates a separate case of child abuse, and Erlendur continues to struggle both with his troubled family relationships and the ghosts of his own youth, their parallel stories probe deeper into the riddle of this latest Reykjavik Murder Mystery.
Mancano pochi giorni a Natale e nello squallido seminterrato di un grande albergo di Reykjavik viene ritrovato il cadavere di un uomo vestito da Babbo Natale e con i pantaloni abbassati. Si tratta del portiere dell'albergo, che sotto le feste si travestiva per divertire i piccoli ospiti. Nella sua misera stanzetta vengono rinvenuti alcuni vecchi dischi in vinile e un poster di Shirley Temple. L'indagine si rivela molto difficile fin da subito per l'agente Erlendur, costretto a confrontarsi con la serie di grotteschi personaggi che popolano l'albergo, e con il marcio nascosto dietro la facciata di irreprensibilità ed eleganza. Ma la rivelazione più scioccante sarà il passato della vittima, un ex bambino prodigio, solista nel coro delle voci bianche di Hafnarfjòrdur, che aveva anche inciso due quarantacinque giri a tiratura limitata, diventati ora una rarità di inestimabile valore per i collezionisti.