Snowblind, the first book in Jónasson’s ‘Dark Iceland’ series was the first of his Icelandic crime novels to be translated into English and published by Orenda Books in 2015 (translated by Quentin Bates). It’s now ten years old, and to celebrate, Orenda are republishing it in hardback, together with a prequel novella Fadeout which introduces us to Ari Thór Arason, who we will follow in the six crime novels that follow. Anthony Horowitz adds an impassioned foreword for the author, his friend, too, along with Ragnar Jónasson’s own preface.
I’ve previously only read the final volume in the Dark Iceland series, Winterkill, which I really enjoyed. In it, Ari Thór is now an inspector, so I know how it ends, but it was a joy to get to know the young man who would become a policeman in Iceland’s northernmost town. I’ll consider the two parts separately, as they have different translators.
Fadeout
Translated by Larissa Kyzer
We begin in 2006 with twenty-two-year-old Ari Thór on a plane to London on the brink of what could either be a waste of time and money, or the start of a big adventure. He’d received a debt-collection letter for £7,000 in his name from a London bank. When he saw the date of the transactions, he had to find out more. We then jump to two days earlier – and Jonasson tells us about Ari Thór, the student – who’d decided philosophy wasn’t him, and enrolled on theology instead, while delivering pizzas on the side amongst other jobs. We jump again to 4 months earlier, which is when Ari Thór met Kristin, a student medic, who will become his girlfriend. This jumping around with the timeline is typical for Jonasson, but there can never be any confusion for he gives the exact date (and location) of each section.
You may think that a phone call to the bank to sort things out would have sufficed, but Ari Thór’s father (presumed dead) had the same name as him. Could this mean that he didn’t die but is alive in London? Good enough reason for hot-footing it there. Although the account was opened with Ari Thór’s (père) passport as id, it appears to be identity fraud, the address given was student digs too, so young Ari Thór returns to Iceland. But his investigative instincts are piqued though, he needs to find out the truth of why his father disappeared that day in 1997. His mother had died shortly afterwards too, leaving Ari Thór an orphan. Ari Thór talks to his father’s colleagues in the accountancy firm they founded, and can’t help thinking they are hiding something. Then he finds an old diary for 1997 in his mother’s papers, and there two clues – a British-sounding name and a woman’s forename ‘Silvia’.
Over the rest of this novella’s 150 or so pages, we follow Ari Thór’s investigations as he digs ever closer to finding out the truth, but also the development of his relationship with Kristin, and his decision to drop theology and go to police college. Being an orphan, Ari Thór has had something of an old head on young shoulders, but the investigations awaken a youthful enthusiasm in him, which naturally could overtake things, but as he gradually unpicks what really happened, he can temper it with acceptance. Ari Thór is a super young man and at this early stage we can tell he’ll make a principled and instinctive police officer. Fadeout was a brilliant introduction to his character.
Snowblind
Translated by Quentin Bates
We begin with a body in the snow – it’s 2009 and we’re in Siglufjörður, (pronounced ‘Siglue-fyoer-thur) – but before we get to that we need to backtrack a year to Reykjavik to find out what’s happening to Ari Thór who has now completed police college and is looking for postings. Kristin has moved in with him, and is still engaged on her medical studies.
Ari Thór had been hoping for a local posting in Reykjavik, but when a call comes through from Tomas, the inspector at Siglufjörður, something makes Ari Thór say yes, regardless of the fact that he may be snowed in in the darkness of Iceland’s most northern town, and that he has no idea of the levels of crime there, out in the provinces. Kristin isn’t happy, needless to say. It’s not so easy to get to Siglufjörður – access is through a mountain tunnel, the nearest airport 60km away.
But Ari Thór is ready for an adventure. He reckons, he’ll only stay there a couple of years, and he and Kristin can visit each other until she finishes her studies… They say adieu at the airport, Kristin having declined to go with him for a visit. The arrival of a new rookie cop has been of great interest to the town, and Ari Thór arrives to find he already has a nickname – ‘Reverend’ after his own studies, (not that he’d chosen theology because he was religious, but to see if he would find a faith). Everyone knows him, but he knows no-one except Tomas who is friendly and welcoming. No wonder Ari Thór feels somewhat claustrophobic.
However, events will soon rock the town which has a thriving am-dram society, when the chair, an elderly and quite famous writer called Hrolfur falls to his death from the theatre gallery. Was he pushed? Tomas thinks it an accident, Ari Thór is not so sure. Then we return to the discovery of a body in the snow – It’s Linda, wife of the am-dram troupe, and she’s still alive just, in a coma.
Christmas beckons, and Ari Thór finds himself scheduled to work – much to Kristin’s disgust. She’d made plans for them both. Anyway, he gets snowed in by an avalanche and couldn’t have left the town anyway. He takes solace in the arms of Ugla, a young woman who’d returned to the town who is giving him piano lessons. You can see that young cop is going to be torn by his two-timing.
As we saw in Fadeout, once Ari Thór gets the bit between his teeth, he can get very enthusiastic, and this time he wants to prove himself to his new boss. His investigative instincts are sound though, and it’s clear he will make a great cop. Siglufjörður may not have much crime, but Ari Thór will find that in a small town, there may be a complicated web of relationships that mean that toes can easily get trodden on and uncovering grudges and feuds leads to more problems to solve. Jónasson inserts some brilliant – Christie-esque even – red herrings into the plot, alongside great twists that add to the suspense.
The bigger questions remain though. Will Ari Thór stay? Will he conquer the claustrophobia of the winter months up by the Arctic circle? Also, will his and Kristin’s relationship survive? Given that another 5 novels follow this one in the series – the first two of those questions are likely to have yes as their answer; Kristin is another matter – we’ll see. Despite being an orphan, I love that Jónasson has made his young hero very normal, giving him a complicated love life to manage and showing us how he learns the job, you can’t help but warm to him.
Snowblind is a great start to a series of obviously great potential – and paired with Ari Thór’s origin story Fadeout, made for a cracking read. I’ll be catching up on the other books in this series for sure.
Source: Review copy – thank you. Orenda hardback, 340 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link (free UK P&P)
I remember really enjoying Snowblind when I read it a few years ago. I’d love to read Fadeout now, it sounds a great prequel. There was always the sense of a significant back story we’d not heard!