This is the first book I’ve read by this Icelandic author. Though it is the first to be translated into English, it is apparently the fourth in a series featuring Guðgeir Fransson.

Guðgeir has been suspended from the Reykjavík police force because “He had made a serious mistake and had then made an error of judgement in keeping quiet about sensitive information that concerned him at a personal level.” A colleague lost his life and Guðgeir’s marriage is in tatters. He has taken a job as a security guard in Höfn, a small town in southeastern Iceland. While living in exile, he is trying to repair his relationship with Inga so when his year-long contract is over, he can hopefully return to his family and job.

Guðgeir becomes aware that a Sri Lankan woman, Sajee Gunawardena, has disappeared. She arrived in Höfn believing she had a job in a salon waiting for her. That job does not exist, and though she stayed at a local hostel for a night, she has not been seen since and there is no evidence of her having left town. Guðgeir decides to investigate, though of course he can only do so unofficially.

The story is narrated from two perspectives, that of Guðgeir and Sajee. The reader learns that Thormóður, the owner of the hostel, has taken Sajee to Bröttuskriður, a remote farm home to Selma Ísaksdóttir and her son Ísak. Sajee believes she will work there for a short while as a cleaner and a companion for Selma, but it soon becomes clear that she is like the fox that Ísak keeps tethered and muzzled.

The setting creates a foreboding atmosphere. The farm is remote and isolated; the farmhouse is grey so “its walls blended in with the grey basalt of the scree behind it.” All the windows have “curtains in a coarse, dark material” except the “narrow basement windows which had been covered with black plastic.” The mountain looming over the farm “resembled a vast fist with sharp nails at the ends of long claws.” Sajee is told about the Hidden People who are described as being good “’unless they’re mistreated . . . [and then they become] merciless in getting their own back.’” Believing in spirits but unfamiliar with Icelandic folk culture, Sajee is made uneasy, as is the reader.

The behaviour of Selma and Ísak also adds to the unease. Selma, with her mercurial temperament, is prone to sudden, unpredictable changes of mood. She may have mental health issues; an acquaintance describes her as “a bit odd. Half crazy, I suppose. She went through some terrible shock when she was young.’” Except for a brief time at university, Ísak “’was always very reliant on his mother, and maybe he found it difficult to get on with other people. He was always on his own.’” A comment made by Ísak about his mother is disturbing: “’She wanted to get rid of him because he’d put her in this position. It was pure desperation, you understand?’”

Guðgeir emerges as a likeable character. His complete backstory is not known, but he seems like a decent man. He obviously regrets his past mistakes and is determined to repair his fractured relationship with his wife. He loves Inga and his two children. When he learns about Sajee, he becomes concerned for her welfare and persists in trying to find her, even calling on former colleagues to help. Silenced, a second book in the series has been translated, and I’m interested in finding out what happens to him.

The writing style sometimes seems clunky, but that may be the translation. I will keep an eye out for Sólveig Pálsdóttir.

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A year ago, a police investigation in Reykjavik went terribly wrong and detective Guðgeir Fransson was suspended for a year. His family life also suffered so he moved on his own to a small village somewhere among the fjords of Iceland and found a job as a security guide. After the stressful job he did for years, this left him with a lot of time.

Meanwhile, Sajee, a young woman from Sri Lanka, arrives in the same village based on a job offer after having worked in Reykjavik for awhile. Except that the job does not seem to exist so a helpful stranger helps her to find a place to sleep and then even assist her in finding a job. Then things start going weird.

The bored detective hears about that woman who seemed so much out of place and becomes curious. And the whole story unravels.

There are both Sri Lankan and Icelandic legends weaved into the narrative; there is the old US presence which rears its head again. And there is madness and cruelty. It is not always clear if a certain scene is inside of one's head or is really happening; there are times when you know it is reality but you wish it was not.

Sajee's life on the fjord is anything but easy and a lot of the story around that is hard to read. But one still returns to see what happens next. Although in places the novel tried too hard and almost seemed to be going to places just for the shock value. Still pretty readable.

This is the 4th in a series and that explains why we never really get all the details of Fransson's past. There are glimpses here and there and one can almost put the story together. And I suspect that some of the weirdness in the detective is based on what you are supposed to know already from previous books... Why the publisher (and/or translator) decided to start the translations with the 4th in a series is a mystery. ( )