Reviews for Arctic Chill (Reykjavik Thriller Series #5)

The average rating for Arctic Chill (Reykjavik Thriller Series #5) based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2021-01-31 00:00:00 Michael Breining Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indriðason is the seventh book in the Inspector Erlendur series. Being a nearly native Minnesotan, I am always drawn to cold-weather, snowy settings in novels, strange as that may seem. In that regard, Indriðason's stories have it in spades. When a ten-year-old "dark-skinned boy" is found dead on the frozen ground, Erlendur and his team are called to the scene. The boy, Elias, is the son of a Thai immigrant mother and an Icelandic father. He's been stabbed in the abdomen and bled to death. Because Iceland's population is predominantly Caucasian, the police immediately begin questioning the motive of the killer. Was it due to racial bias? Erlendur is a somber character. He's haunted by the death of his younger brother when they young; his brother's body was never found. When Erlendur's daughter Eva Lind tries to get more information out of him, he puts her off in his reluctance to discuss the matter. For the most part, he is not a social animal. He's divorced, is seeing a married woman, but their relationship does not particularly exude warmth and romance. With fellow detectives Elendur and Sigurdur Óli, he is a man of few words. He seems to live inside his own head a lot. The author meticulously takes the reader step-by-step through the investigation. Witnesses are interviewed, some several times. Lies and deceptions abound. The case moves at a snail's pace, it seems. This is Indriðason's style - slow, steady, understated - and yet, he had me hooked. There is a mysterious woman who keeps phoning Erlendur. He's certain it's the woman from a missing person case, and he grows increasingly impatient because she seems frightened and uncooperative somehow. I kept wondering if this was just the author's way of revealing Erlendur' character, or if it somehow related to the boy's murder. I followed the relationships with curiosity and interest. Sunni, the mother of Elias, has a 15-year-old full-blooded Thai son, whom she brought to Iceland after she married her Icelandic husband. Now divorced, she is left with only one son, and she is extremely protective of him. This part of the plot adds to the mystery. Could this son be a suspect in his brother's murder, or is he, too, afraid for his life? Arnaldur Indridason's writing is a drastic change from many of the fast-paced thrillers that many readers love. He doesn't focus much on violence, and once the pieces begin to fall into place, things do move more quickly. I could have done with fewer details about the investigation, but the author also uses that space to mix in personal information about Erlendur and other characters. In Arctic Chill he has stoked my curiosity about what actually happened in that blizzard when his brother was lost and why he still refuses to talk about it. Indications are that that may change in the next book, Hypothermia. 4 stars

Review # 2 was written on 2010-01-29 00:00:00 Wendy Phillips Erlendur: D mystery/thriller plotting: D- writing: F social commentary: D- translation: F- The entire murder mystery is utterly banal, the writing drab and unimaginative. I was going to say that Arnaldur really jumped the shark with this one (and that's just the type of stupid expression he and his translators would love) but I think he already did that with Voices. This is a translation that is oddly, bewilderingly, almost willfully subpar. Some examples: A family sits down to a meal of "spaghetti with mince." Huh? "He may not exactly have welcomed me with open arms but he didn't take against me." "He sort of dithered about and you had to chivvy him along." "What do you mean? I don't want to get my own back on her!" (Get back at her?) "He was often the last to leave class....he was a sort of 'flight attendent'." (He stayed behind to clean the aisles?) He wasn't long at all, as he told that Erlendur bloke who tore him off such a strip that he almost burst into tears. (Ripped him a new ***hole?) "Was my boss for donkey's years, but retired a while back." There was also the oddity of discovering that there are "colored" people in Iceland, and that these people are Asian. And the murder victim being "colored" is dangled before us as a motive, but is just a red herring. Very, very lame.