Viktor A. Ingolfsson

Although the professionals from Reykjavik are finally sent for, it's the amateurs who really do the lion's share of the murder investigations in The Flatey Enigma, and I found following them around this remote area of western Iceland to be fascinating. As villagers are interviewed, as they help guide the magistrate's assistant from place to place, the reader learns a lot about the customs and food of Iceland in 1960. I have to admit that I tended to skim over the menus quickly because roast show more puffin breast and baby seal stew just don't appeal to me, but the food people eat says a lot about them, and it certainly does here.

I deduced the killer's identity early on, but I still enjoyed following the investigation because I was learning so much about Iceland. Each chapter in the book ends with information about the Flatey Book (which actually exists), ancient Icelandic legends that are contained within its vellum pages, and finally the forty enigma questions themselves. Sometimes inclusions like these interrupt the narrative and are annoying. They certainly weren't in this case.

Sometimes when I read a mystery, what I reap is so much more than solving a crime, and this is what happened when I read The Flatey Enigma. Yes, the mystery is interesting, but I feel as though I learned a great deal about the customs and the people of an area of Iceland far removed from its capital of Reykjavik. show less

I'm a fan of Scandinavian crime and mystery novels and this book did not let me down. Inserting decades old journals to a current day murder was very effective and also added interesting perspectives on WWI and WWII. Good writing, although the Icelandic names of people and places can be a challenge in the early chapters. I would definitely recommend this book, especially to anyone who is a 20th century history and railroad buff.

At first, I found the police procedural business quite interesting: I've never known the forensic Scene-Of-Crime boys followed in such detail! But with the interleaving of the victim's diaires, I began to smell the distinctly fishy odour of padding. The diary entries do effectively demonstrate the descent of a mind from enthusiasm, via obsession, to something like madness; but their sketchiness serves merely to tell when they should show - can't the author manage (or be bothered?) to realise show more his story more effectively?

It's no worse than OK, as my three stars indicate - but no better, either. I must take issue with at least one other reviewer here: this novel IN NO WAY approaches Larsson's Millenniium trilogy in readability, characterisation, theme, or any other quality I can think of. Except, perhaps, that there is quite a lot of snow involved. show less

Only a short while ago, I realised that there are two types of mysteries/thrillers I liked: the serial killer thrillers and the ones where a journalist or police officer tries to figure out a case that happened 20/30/50 years ago. This one is Icelandic book which means lots of names that sound funny to my Austrian ears and are difficult to remember. It centers around one man's obsession with building a railroad in Iceland at the turn of the century. I learned few interesting things about show more Icelandic history (I didn't realise it used to be part of Denmark) and not quite so interesting things about the railroad. show less