Silence of the grave

Though Scandinavians may enjoy a low crime rate, they have a high concern for human welfare and social justice that seems to have shaped this region's rich crime fiction tradition. Set in the author’s home of Reykjavik, and artfully translated from Icelandic by Bernard Scudder, this novel opens with a scene that's both shocking and matter-of-fact. A medical student at a children's birthday party notices an infant chewing on something that looks oddly familiar. Sure enough, it's a human bone, brought home by an adventurous elder sibling from a building site on the sprawling edges of the capital city. The police are called in to investigate, but have little to go on. The only conjecture they can make is that years ago there might have been a dwelling place nearby, thanks to a current bush that someone must have planted in the windswept and barren landscape. But as a physical anthropologist slowly uncovers the bones and the police try to find out who it might have been, another story is unfolding. It’s commonplace, unfortunately, and yet shocking in its raw violence. A bitter and twisted man marries a woman who has a disabled child. He moves them to an isolated place and proceeds to terrorize her with physical and emotional abuse. Though she tries to find a way out, she’s trapped, thanks to poverty, isolation, and indifference. The suspense lies in how the woman will survive from one day to the next - and whether it’s her body buried near the currant bushes or someone else’s. Gradually we realize her story, urgent though it is, actually lies in the past; we’re learning what happened in parallel with the police investigation. Though the story is bleak, its characters are hauntingly real and the narrative structure is exhilarating in its layered, nuanced excavation of the truth.