It's From Iceland, But it Ain't Cod

The Draining Lake: A Thriller (Reykjavik Thriller) by Arnaldur Indridason (which I received for Christmas) is a great read. Indridason is one of a surprisingly large number of Scandinavian crime mystery authors (Per Wahloo, Henning Mankell, Karin Fossum, Kjell Eriksson, and Stieg Larsson to name a few). Indridason may be the best.

My Amazon review:

Much More than a Police Procedural - A Stupendously Good Read, December 27, 2008

In 'The Draining Lake', Arnaldur Indridason has produced one of the most captivating multilayered books I have read in years. On its face, the book is a police procedural that is exotic only in the sense of its Icelandic setting. Underneath the murder mystery, Indridason gives the reader a stunning and sobering recreation of the East German surveillance society in the 1950's. Indridason incisively describes what pervasive `interactive surveillance' did to people, outwardly and inwardly. Along the way he powerfully describes the power of love and memory. The book opens with the discovery of an old skeleton that has been exposed by the slow draining of a lake near Reykjavik. The… Read more