Aðeins meira um blessaðan gagnrýnandann

Fyrst ég var nú að tala um Harriet Klausner, þá er hér gott dæmi um hvernig The Klausner (eins og hún er stundum kölluð) vinnur - ég valdi Röddina (Voices) eftir Arnald Indriðason. Hún hefur skrifað um a.m.k. fjórar bækur hans; þrjár fengu fimm stjörnur, ein fjórar.

Skáletruðu kaflarnir eru umsögn Kirkus Reviews, þekkts bandarísks tímarits sem birtir umsagnir (en ekki eiginlega gagnrýni) einkum ætlaðar bókasöfnum, bóksölum o.þ.h. Ég sé engin merki þess að Harriet blessunin hafi lesið neitt annað en umsögn Kirkus Reviews (og hugsanlega baksíðutextann).

Klausner:
The grand hotel is loaded with tourists vacationing in Iceland during Christmas. However, the management calls the Reykjavik police to inform them someone murdered their doorman who doubled as Santa Claus. Police inspector Erlendur and Detectives Sigurdur Oli and Elinborg arrive at the crime scene to find in the basement the bludgeoned corpse of Gudlaugur Egilsson; a used condom hangs from his penis.

Kirkus:
Who killed Santa Claus? Reykjavík police inspector Erlendur, with sidekicks Sigurdur Óli and Elinborg, is summoned to a posh hotel to investigate the murder of Gudlaugur Egilsson, found stabbed in his modest basement digs with a condom hanging from his "ditty."

As saliva is taken from all the guests and employees, the three cops interview everyone, but no one admits knowing the victim outside of the hotel. The hotel manager confesses that he had just fired Gudlaugur, but had no motive to kill him.

Saliva samples are taken of guests and employees, none of whom admits personally knowing the 50-ish doorman/handyman. But the hotel manager sheepishly acknowledges that he'd just fired Gudlaugur, apparently leaving him with no other prospects.

Erlendur and his companions soon learn that Gudlaugur was a popular soprano as a young boy so the sleuths turn towards his family, whom he was estranged from after an incident with his father left the older Egilsson wheelchair bound.

A little digging reveals a remarkable story. Gudlaugur was a boy soprano with a brief but spectacular career. Indeed, hotel guest Henry Wapshott had come all the way from England to meet him. Talking to Gudlaugur's estranged father and sister and his old choirmaster Gabríel fills in many details of Gudlaugur's fall from fame, which involved an embarrassing public performance and a subsequent battle with his father so fierce that it left the old man confined to a wheelchair.

Erlendur personalizes the case as it reminds him of his own family, but diligently continues seeking the motive that will lead to the killer's identity if DNA testing fails to do so.
This terrific Icelander police procedural combines a strong murder investigation with Erlendur's personal crisis as the case is wearing him down. His daughter visits him though everyone assumes she is a hooker he hired, and he considers an affair with a crime scene technician.

The case affects Erlendur strangely. Suddenly very tired, he takes a room at the hotel, has obsessive thoughts about his broken family (in a hilarious scene, his drug-addicted daughter Eva Lind, visiting him in his room, is mistaken by hotel staff for a prostitute) and edges toward an affair with Valgerdur, an attractive crime-scene technician.

Readers will appreciate Arnaldur Indridason's fabulous whodunit due to predominately Erlendur (see his previous case SILENCE OF THE GRAVE).

Another top-notch mystery from Indridason (Silence of the Grave, 2006, etc.), its lyrical melancholy matched by the depth of its characterizations.

Það er nú það.