Frozen Assets

This is the first of a series featuring Sgt. Gunnhildur Gisladottir. Gunna is a 40-ish cop in Hvalvik, a small town about an hour outside of Reykjavik. A widow with a grown son & 13 year old daughter, she'll never be mistaken for a super model but Gunna has both feet firmly on the ground & a deep sense of self.
She's also very good at her job. Among her colleagues, she still runs into some who dismiss female cops but in her case, they do so at their peril.
Hvalvik is a town where the biggest problems are drunks, petty theft & redirecting traffic to accommodate construction of a large smelter facility & hydroelectric power station. They're controversial projects & tension between big industry & environmentalists is heating up. In fact, show more it's about to turn deadly.
It all begins with a body. Gunna gets a call about a man found floating by a nearby dock. Murder is rare in Iceland but once she identifies him, there are a couple of things that grab her attention. There was no reason for this city boy to be in Hvalvik. Also, a close friend of his recently died in another "accident".
Meanwhile, Gunna has been saddled with a journalist from Reykjavik. Skuli Snaedal is a rookie reporter & his editor wants a series of articles detailing the activities of rural cops. Instead, he'll soon find himself on the ground floor of a major investigation with national repercussions. Murder, industrial espionage, banking irregularities & corporate fraud are just the tip of the iceberg as this case presages the 2008 collapse of Iceland's financial institutions.
This is what I would describe as a gentle detective story. I normally prefer police procedurals that are a little grittier but enjoyed it for 2 reasons. First, a smart & intricate plot. Second, an interesting & original protagonist. My only quibble are the endless references to/comments by other characters about Gunna's looks & dress size. Maybe it was supposed to come across as a running gag but soon became tiresome & unnecessary to the plot. So she's not a beauteous babe. We get it.
Instead, she's something much more interesting & relatable...an average looking woman who's a great mom & dedicated cop. Her gruff manner masks a big heart. And it's her sharp intellect that makes the connections between various characters & their personal agendas.
There are many peripheral characters including police, journalists, activists & politicians that flesh out the plot. Having been to this beautiful country, I was hoping for a more atmospheric read with a specific sense of place but to be fair there's a lot going on here with a large cast so the story is more character driven.
All in all, a well paced & "clean" (no swearing, sex, etc.) detective novel with a compelling lead that should appeal to fans of the cozier form of this genre. show less

It's hard to believe this is the author's first novel. It's a good book, not great, but still a well-paced and interesting crime fiction read. In short, I liked it, didn't love it, and chalk my feelings up to this book being a series first novel, which is often where the author is just getting it together.

Frozen Assets is both the author's first novel and the first entry of a new series featuring Gunnhildur Gisládottir of the Hvalvik police in Iceland. Gunna is in her mid-thirties, a widowed mother of two, and used to dealing with small town crimes like speeding and the occasional uncooperative drunk. But things change when the body of a drunken stranger is discovered floating in the water of a small boat dock with no ID except an odd show more tattoo. In trying to identify the dead man, her investigation leads her to a company called Spearpoint, a PR firm headquartered in Reykjavik which just incidentally happens to have an interest in a development project in Hvalvik. The inquiries remain pretty routine until one of the staff at Spearpoint reveals to Gunna that some time back, a friend of the dead man had been killed in a car accident. Gunna begins to wonder if there is a link between the two deaths, and the investigation takes off from there, with Gunna setting her sights on catching a killer and not letting up until the job is done.

But wait...there's much more. Interwoven into the main story are entries from an anonymous and elusive "Skandalblogger," a muckraker who seems to have his or her finger on the pulse of what's happening in government circles and in the private lives of connected others, such as the owner of Spearpoint, Sigurjóna Huldudottír and her randy sister, two of the blogger's favorite targets. The blogger's mission is to expose high-level government corruption and personal greed that affects the average tax-paying citizen, while simultaneously spilling personal secrets that embarrass and enrage the already high-maintenance Sigurjóna, who wants the Skandalblogger's head on a platter. As things heat up, the author also builds on the environment and Iceland's banking crisis of 2008 to add another dimension to the story. All of the various threads are eventually linked together, with enough of a hint of a series yet to be at the end.

Considering that this is the author's first novel, Gunna's character is quite well developed. She's down to earth, common sensical and follows her nose, despite unwanted interruptions from superiors. She's to the point, often brash in her role as cop, but at the same time, the reader senses some vulnerabilities within her on a personal level. And she's not a stick-figure gorgeous detective like so many authors insist on having as a main character but more on the bigger side, and is often referred to as the fat cop or even once "a big fat lass with a face that frightens the horses." It is downright refreshing to have a strong female lead character who isn't too overly concerned with her love life or lack of one, who is built like a real person and in her mid-30s and one who speaks her mind and follows her instincts and her nose. The author also does a great job with the people you come to dislike in the novel as well -- Sigurjóna, the histrionic owner of Spearpoint whose employees cringe when anything goes wrong knowing they're going to hear about it; the bad guy who has a personality as cold as glacial ice, government officials who don't care about the average citizen, and others as well. Gunna's co-workers don't fare so well in the characterization department, but again, I think this will come with time.

You won't find any romance or silliness here (yay) but what you will find is an intriguing story that is well paced, with a sense of place that adds to the overall atmosphere of the story. It's definitely not in cozy league, but it's not quite as edgy or dark as an Indridason novel. What you get is something a bit lighter in overall tone that picks up as the story moves along. The author continues the trend of adding in the political and economic woes of the system, a trend I happen to like, but I know of many other people who can't get past it and want only the action of the crime and its solution. Personally speaking, I think incorporating these various elements only adds to the overall sense of place and time, creating something more realistic in the long run.

I think this one will appeal to crime fiction readers in general because of the strong lead character, and regular readers of Scandinavian crime fiction will also find it to be a good start to another ongoing series. show less

I recently read Snowblind by the Icelandic author Ragnar Jónasson and discovered the translator was Quentin Bates who has also written a series of Icelandic mysteries. So I thought I’d give Bates’ book a try.

Frozen Assets is the first in the series introducing Sgt. Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, known by everybody as Gunna the Cop. A body is found in the water near Hvalvík where Gunna is the police officer in charge. It might seem like an accidental drowning but then Gunna discovers that the victim had been seen in Reykjavik severely inebriated so the big question is how he got 100 kms away from the city. Gunna’s investigations uncover corruption involving the victim’s boss, Signurjóna Huldudóttir, who is married to the show more country’s Environment Minister.

It is Gunna the Cop that interests me enough to get me to read more of the books in the series. She is described as “a big fat lass with a face that frightens the horses” though that is an obvious exaggeration. She is astute and intelligent and straightforward. She doesn’t suffer fools easily. Colleagues respect her. For me, she is just a character I could not help but like.

Minor characters, unfortunately, tend to be a blur. I had difficulty differentiating the other police officers. Only the journalist shadowing Gunna and the villain emerge as fully developed characters.

I enjoyed learning more about the political and economic turmoil that Iceland experienced in 2008. I had never clearly understood what had happened, but Bates manages to explain in a way that makes sense.

The story is told from multiple perspectives; being given the viewpoint of the villain certainly increases suspense as a cat-and-mouse game develops.

I also appreciated the touches of humour. Throughout the book, blog entries by an anonymous blogger are inserted. This blogger provides “completely reliable, totally unsubstantiated and extremely libellous gossip about the great and the good of Icelandic entertainment, business and politics.” Some of his comments are hilarious, though of course his victims are less than pleased.

I will definitely return to this series because of the protagonist who is anything but a stereotypical police detective.

Please check out my reader's blog (http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski). show less

Frozen Assets is a mystery set in Iceland with Gunna the cop, a woman working in a man's world. When a body is found floating in the harbor,the investigation leads Gunna to the highest leves of government corruption and echos the real life financial crises in Iceland. Great sense of place and a main character to admire. Excellent!

First Line: Water gurgled between the piles of the dock and the car's tyres juddered over the heavy timbers.

It's an open-and-shut case: the young man was drunk, stumbled off the dock late at night, and drowned. But Police Sergeant Gunnhildur wonders why on earth he'd get drunk in Reykjavik and then drive a hundred miles to fall into the harbor in her town and drown? Resources are tight, and although she's advised to stop looking into this death, Gunnhildur is nothing if not stubborn. The further she digs, the more she finds-- and the information and clues are leading all the way to Iceland's business and banking communities.

While Gunnhildur and her team investigate, a rookie crime journalist attaches himself to her in an attempt to get show more a scoop, and everyone in the country is wondering who's dishing all the dirt at Skandalblogger.com. When a second murder occurs, Gunnhildur knows she and her team must move even faster to catch a very wily killer.

Bates makes the landscape and weather of Iceland a brooding character in Frozen Assets. The economy, which worsens daily, highlights Iceland's precarious situation as a small country with very limited resources.

The secondary characters (with the exception of two spoiled rich sisters) are a bit two-dimensional, but the two main characters certainly aren't. The killer is ruthless and very, very smart if a bit arrogant. Having heard Officer Gunnhildur referred to as "the fat policewoman" once, he continues to dismiss her as such-- even when he discovers that she's more than a match for him.

Gunna is the single mother of two children. Her thirteen-year-old daughter is still in school while her nineteen-year-old son is working as a deckhand on a fishing boat. The reader knows that she's a bit out of the ordinary right from the start when she insists that the young man's death is not a case of accidental drowning, and then when the case is given to another policeman who wants to pin the death on his favorite suspect. As soon as she sees which way the wind is blowing, she refuses to have any part in it.

When Gunna knows she's right, she will not back down, regardless of whose face she has to get into, what she has to say, or how many hours she has to work. She's good at thinking on her feet, and she does an excellent job of running the investigation and keeping everyone focused and looking in the right directions. The best part of this book was watching the battle of wits between Gunna and the killer.

If there was any one thing that disappointed me in reading this book, it was that I found the tone to be curiously dispassionate. I found it difficult to become fully engaged in the story. That is a minor quibble however, as there is plenty to like in Frozen Assets. I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Officer Gunnhildur, and I won't have to wait long. The second book in the series, Cold Comfort, just became available. show less

This is a well-crafted police story featuring a 36 year old female police sergeant who is interesting, smart & unusual. The writing is very good; the only difficulty with it is the Icelandic names with which I was unfamiliar, but the insight into Iceland was fascinating and the main character well worth getting to know.

"She's a big fat lass with a face that frightens horses."
That is the description Skuli is given when he asks how he will recognize Gunnhilda.

I did wonder how much she would have in common with Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope or even Big Marge, Aline Templeton's raw-boned Scot.

FROZEN ASSETS is the debut novel in the Gunnhildur serieswhich has now grown to four published titles. Essentially it is a police procedural with a middle aged female police sergeant operating in rural Iceland. As it is the first in the series there is a lot of background material to introduce Gunna and her colleagues to us, so it feels as if it will be best to read the titles in order (see the list below).

Gunna is a single parent with a 13 year old daughter so she show more tries essentially to work a 9 to 5 job, and usually nothing very exciting happens in Hvalvik, and so it is mainly possible. Of course she is constantly on call and locals visit her at home out of hours if they need anything. But the discovery of a body in the Hvalvik harbour changes all that, particularly since there does not seem to be any explanation of how he actually got there.

Gunna is pulled into a team based in Reyjavik, and is put in charge of the investigation which seems to have nation-wide implications. A new energy plant is being built at Hvalvik but the company behind it was once government-owned, and it seems that all sort of people, including government ministers are profiting. In addition an anonymously published blog with "inside" sources is highlighting both corruption and sexual pecadilloes happening in high society. Add to that the fact that Iceland's banks are just beginning to feel the financial crisis, and overseas investors are withdrawing from the scheme.

I like Gunna's strong character, her persistence, her comprehensive grasp of what needs to be done, and also the different view of Iceland this novel gives. I think I'll definitely be looking into another title in the series. show less