Arnaldur Indridason Libri

In un'Islanda travolta dalla speculazione finanziaria, la gente si sente autorizzata a cercare ricchezze, spesso indebitandosi per uno stile di vita insostenibile. Lina, segretaria di commercialisti e ricattatrice dilettante, si trova a fronteggiare le conseguenze delle sue scelte. Nel frattempo, Andrés, un alcolista emarginato, cerca disperatamente di attirare l'attenzione della polizia su un uomo che ha rovinato la sua infanzia e il suo futuro. Sigurdur Oli, un agente di polizia, indaga su entrambi i casi, mettendo in discussione la sua ammirazione per chi accumula fortune e il suo disprezzo per i reietti. Attraverso i bassifondi abitati da piccoli delinquenti e il lusso che cela crimini immateriali, Sigurdur Oli osserva la decadenza morale di un paese che ha perso la sua innocenza. Dopo aver sacrificato i propri valori per la corsa al denaro, l'Islanda si avvicina a una crisi senza precedenti, rivelando un panorama di bellezze naturali e squallori metropolitani che riflettono un'epoca di profondi cambiamenti e sfide.

Uno scheletro emerge dalle acque del lago Kleifarvatn, nel sud di Reykjavík, mentre il bacino si prosciuga e rivela i suoi segreti. A trovarlo è una giovane idrologa, ma la polizia inizialmente scambia la segnalazione per uno scherzo. I resti, risalenti agli anni Sessanta, sono associati a un misterioso apparecchio sovietico, simile a una ricetrasmittente, con un foro nel cranio grande come una scatola di fiammiferi. L'agente Erlendur Sveinsson, solitario e spigoloso, è incaricato delle indagini. Ossessionato dai casi di persone scomparse, soprattutto quelli trascurati dai media, è affiancato dai colleghi Sigurður Óli ed Elínborg, con l'assistenza del suo ex capo, Marion Briem, in pensione. Nonostante gli indizi scarsi e le tracce confuse, emerge un elemento cruciale: la scomparsa dell'uomo è legata a una rete spionistica del Patto di Varsavia, attiva durante la Guerra Fredda, quando l'Islanda era strategicamente importante per la NATO. Erlendur dovrà affrontare rancori mai sopiti, ideologie tradite e amori indimenticati per scoprire se il fantasma del comunismo aleggi ancora sull'Islanda.

Il Natale è alle porte, fervono i preparativi, ma la festosa atmosfera di un lussuoso albergo di Reykjavik viene turbata dal ritrovamento del corpo di un uomo ucciso a coltellate. Svolte le prime verifiche del caso, l'agente investigativo Erlendur e la sua squadra scoprono che si tratta di Gudlaugur Egilsson, portiere e tuttofare alle dipendenze dell'hotel, morto in circostanze a dir poco misteriose: l'uomo, infatti, indossava un costume da Babbo Natale e aveva i pantaloni calati... Scavando nel suo passato, Erlendur ricostruisce la vicenda di Gulli, ex bambino prodigio, talentuoso solista di un coro di voci bianche, acclamato dal grande pubblico internazionale, con la prospettiva di una brillante carriera nel mondo del bel canto. Ma evidentemente qualcosa è andato storto...

OLD CRIMES, NEW CONSEQUENCES THE PAST In wartime Reykjavik, a young woman is found strangled behind the National Theatre, a rough and dangerous area of the city known as 'the shadow district'. An Icelandic detective and a member of the American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer. THE PRESENT A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings in the dead man's home reporting the shadow district murder that date back to the second world war. It's a crime that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighbourhood. A MISSING LINK Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? How are these cases linked across the decades? Will Konrad's link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of wartime Reykjavik to rest? THE SHADOW DISTRICT IS THE FIRST IN A MAJOR NEW SERIES OF NOVELS FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER ARNALDUR INDRIDASON

Somewhere in the wilderness of Iceland's frozen East Fjords, Erlendur is on the hunt. For a long lost brother, for a woman who vanished decades ago, for answers. He has come to confront the family tragedy that has haunted him all his life. But it is another missing-person story - the disappearance of Matthildur, lost in a snow-storm decades before but not yet forgotten - which reels him in. Slowly, the past begins to give up its secrets - of infidelities, betrayal, revenge and murder. There are blizzards, bitter cold, people at the limit of endurance. It is a journey that will have Erlendur wrestle all his personal demons but also find him at midnight, in an open grave, face to face with the evidence of long-buried crimes.

A corpse is found on a hill outside the city, and Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson and his team think the body may have been buried for some years. While Erlendur struggles to hold together the crumbling fragments of his own family, slowly but surely he finds out the truth about another unhappy family. Few people are still alive who can tell the tale, but even secrets taken to the grave cannot remain hidden forever.

One cold autumn night, a woman is found hanging from a beam in her summer cottage by Lake Thingvellir. At first sight it appears to be a straightforward case of suicide; the woman, Mar�a, had never recovered from the loss of her mother two years earlier and had a history of depression. But when Karen, the friend who found her body, approaches Erlendur and gives him the tape of a s�ance that Mar�a had attended, his curiosity is aroused. Driven by a need to find answers that even he does not fully understand, Erlendur embarks on an unofficial investigation to find out why the woman's life ended in such an abrupt and tragic manner. At the same time he is haunted by the unresolved cases of two young people who went missing thirty years before, and, inevitably, his discoveries raise ghosts from his own past.

Unofficially investigating a suspicious suicide, Inspector Erlendur becomes increasingly unsettled by the unsolved cases of two young people who went missing decades earlier under circumstances tied to his own past.

A missing woman. A missing boy. Detective Erlendur returns - for the last time A young woman walks into the frozen fjords of Iceland, never to be seen again. But Matthildur leaves in her wake rumours of lies, betrayal and revenge. Decades later, somewhere in the same wilderness, Detective Erlendur is on the hunt. He is looking for Matthildur but also for a long-lost brother, whose disappearance in a snow-storm when they were children has coloured his entire life. He is looking for answers. Slowly, the past begins to surrender its secrets. But as Erlendur uncovers a story about the limits of human endurance, he realises that many people would prefer their crimes to stay buried.

THE QUICK A woman swims in a remote, milky-blue lagoon. Steam rises from the water and as it clears, a body is revealed in the ghostly light. THE DEAD Miles away, a vast aircraft hangar rises behind the perimeter fence of the US military base. A sickening thud is heard as a man’s body falls from a high platform. THE FORGOTTEN Many years before, a schoolgirl went missing. The world has forgotten her. But Erlendur has not. THE SEARCHER Erlendur Sveinsson is a newly promoted detective with a battered body, a rogue CIA operative and America’s troublesome presence in Iceland to contend with. In his spare time he investigates a cold case. He is only starting out but he is already up to his neck. 'His novels are gripping, authentic, haunting and lyrical' – Harlan Coben