The Draining Lake [Paperback]

At the start of Gold Dagger Award–winner Indridason's carefully plotted fourth entry in his crime series starring detective Erlendur Sveinsson (Jar City, etc.), a human skeleton surfaces in the bed of a lake near Reykjavik that's been mysteriously draining away. The bones are tied to some kind of Russian listening device, presumably a remnant of the Cold War. As Erlendur and his colleagues, Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli, go about checking on people who went missing around 1970, Erlendur is reminded of the disappearance of his younger brother when they were children. Erlendur's lifelong obsession with the missing provides a haunting metaphor for this lonely, middle-aged man, divorced and alienated from his own two children. Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli, on the other hand, aren't particularly persuasive characters, but flashbacks to the University of Leipzig during the Cold War provide compelling insights into the splintered politics of the day, as well as the Icelandic students studying there at the time. (Sept.)
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"Indridason pieces together a convincing plot, while exploring universal issues of political idealism and shattered dreams."
--Daily Mirror

"A beautiful, sad, haunting tale of lost love and lost illusion, regret and betrayal."
--The Times

"An absorbing story which confirms Indridason's place among the leading writers of Nordic crime fiction."
-- Sunday Telegraph

A brilliant new mystery from the winner of the CWA Gold Dagger and Indridason's best book yet.

In the wake of an earthquake, the water level of an Icelandic lake drops suddenly, revealing the skeleton of a man half-buried in its sandy bed. It is clear immediately that it has been there for many years. There is a large hole in the skull. Yet more mysteriously, a heavy communication device is attached to it, possibly some sort of radio transmitter, bearing inscriptions in Russian.                                                                    

The police are called in and Erlendur, Elinborg and Sigurdur Olii begin their investigation, which gradually leads them back to the time of the Cold War when bright, left-wing students would be sent from Iceland to study in the 'heavenly state' of Communist East Germany.

The Draining Lake is another remarkable Indridason mystery about passions and shattered dreams, the fate of the missing and the grief of those left behind.

ARNALDUR INDRIDASON was born in 1961, the son of an Icelandic author. Having worked for many years as a journalist and reviewer for an Icelandic newspaper, he began writing novels. He won the Nordic Crime Novel Award for Tainted Blood (originally published in the UK under the title Jar City) and, in the following year, for its sequel, Silence of the Grave. Tainted Blood is his first novel to be translated into English.