The Draining Lake

This novel rises above its extremely predictable cover (a skull shock horror). Like Voices, it deals with real issues (in this case, what people did in the Cold War and how accountable they are today for their actions and allegances then) as well as presenting a detective story and an historical thriller. It is the latter which carries most of the dramatic charge and seems to be well-researched and captivating. The detective/police investigation section is (as in his other novels) mundane, often simply procedural bureaucracy and its (non) workings, and is in itself simply dull. Indridason's police officers are people I would avoid socially not because they are coppers but because they are SO BORING. But of course that is which gives his show more better thrillers a textural contrast, between the high drama of real crime and sheer tedium of minutiae, mediocrity, bureaucratic procedure and mundanity which police detective work reduces such dramas to as a 'case'. That contast between subjective levels of engagement of those involved in the original, background historical events and the extremely-belated police investigation is so sharp in this novel that it raised my experience of reading it to a powerful emotional level (OK, so i was in Paris and in poor health too, having bought it at the fabulous Canadian bookshop on rue de la Parcheminerie - go, visit!). show less

Con la scusa di scrivere un (ottimo) noir, Indridason compone, come del resto è consuetudine degli scrittori di noir scandinavi, una eccellente opera sociale sull'influenza di un certo tipo di indottrinamento "comunista" ai tempi della guerra fredda, e parla con notevole competenza, segno di una approfondita ricerca, delle condizioni di vita degli studenti stranieri nella Germania dell'est.
Su tutto ciò si innesta il giallo vero e proprio, condito con interessanti scorci della società islandese, e con il commissario Erlendur, uno dei tanti poliziotti umanamente confusi della prosa scandinava.

Ég hef ekki lesið margar bækur eftir Arnald Indriðason en þessi fangaði hug minn algerlega. Hún segir frá beinafundi í Kleifarvatni eftir að vatnsborðið þar lækkar óvænt í kjölfar jarðskjálfta. Í ljós kemur að maður hefur verið myrtur löngu áður og líkinu sökkt með því að binda við það rússneskan hlerunarbúnað.
Sagan gerist síðan á tveimur samhliða tímarásum þar sem annars vegar segir frá rannsókn lögreglunnar og hins vegar segir frá endurminningum manns sem stundaði nám í gamla A.-Þýskalandi, í fyrstu sannfærður sósíalisti en verður síðan æ gagnrýnni á stjórnarfyrirkomulagið þar.
Meginþema sögunnar er þó söknuður og sorg vegna tapaðra ástvina sem hrjáir show more flestar sögupersónurnar með einum eða öðrum hætti. Skemmtileg sakamálasaga með töluverðri persónulegri dýpt sem er nokkuð óvenjulegt í þeim geira. show less

Indridasson writes very well in a low-key style which I liked very much, and the characters are very well-drawn.

The translation is excellent. There is no overblown prose or breathless descriptions of implausibly violent events, but the atmosphere and sense of place, both in present-day Iceland and in 1950s East Germany is exceptionally well evoked and truly engrossing - I really enjoyed getting a feel for Iceland in particular. The plot is (thank heavens) both comprehensible and believable and there is mystery and plenty of genuine tension in spite of a total (and to me welcome) absence of sex scenes, explosions and car chases.

In short, this is an intelligent, thoughtful and humane book which is also a really gripping read.

In The Draining Lake, Arnaldur took what really happened to Lake Kleifarvatn and made it a springboard for a fascinating mystery. It's not just the searching for the identity of a skeleton discovered because the water level has fallen enough (the phone conversation between the discoverer and the person to whom she tries to report it made me chuckle). The action moves back and forth between the present-day investigation and East Germany in the early 1950s.

I was born in 1954, so I do remember the Cold War, but not, of course, that period. The East Germany chapters are from the viewpoint of an idealistic and naive Icelandic college student. He is a very committed Marxist socialist, one of several who have received funding to study abroad. show more Tomas is able to rationalize the problems with life under Soviet rule for a long time, but his eyes are eventually opened. Of course these flashbacks have something to do with the skeleton. I'm afraid my immediate reaction to the identity of the skeleton and the reason behind his death was very un-Christian: I thought it served him right.

Inspector Erlendur is obsessed with discovering the fate of a man who went missing in 1968. He may or may not have become the skeleton in the lake, but he left behind a fiancée who has never recovered from his disappearance. It doesn't help that the officer involved in the original investigation was/is lazy.

There are conversations between the inspector and his grown children. Erlendur learns that his daughter told his son the story about their uncle who went missing when he and their father were children. Erlendur wants to give up on helping his addicted daughter, but his son says she needs him. There's a development with the unhappily married woman with whom Erlendur has not been having an affair, but has been seeing often enough that his colleagues assume she's his lady.

Erlendur learns useful information from his mentor, whose years as a heavy smoker have caught up with him. The dying man still wants a cigarette. Erlendur won't give him one, but continues smoking himself. (No, his own nicotine addiction does not give the inspector any insight into his daughter's drug addiction. Pity.)

I recommend this book to lovers of good mysteries and social history. George Guidall's narration is engaging. show less

In 'The Draining Lake', Arnaldur Indridason has produced one of the most captivating multilayered books I have read in years. On its face, the book is a police procedural that is exotic only in the sense of its Icelandic setting. Underneath the murder mystery, Indridason gives the reader a stunning and sobering recreation of the East German surveillance society in the 1950's. Indridason incisively describes what pervasive `interactive surveillance' did to people, outwardly and inwardly. Along the way he powerfully describes the power of love and memory.

The book opens with the discovery of an old skeleton that has been exposed by the slow draining of a lake near Reykjavik. The skeleton is all the more unusual in that it was tied to and show more weighed down by an old Soviet radio transmitter. The kind that might have been used by a spy. It has all lain at the bottom of the lake for some thirty years.

A second narrative describes life for a group of student Icelanders on scholarship at Leipzig in the 1950's. The students all arrive as devoted socialists. They experience a tightly controlled society where everyone is expected to spy on everyone else. The students' reactions to this totalitarian state vary. Some rebel, some are co-opted, some actively collaborate. Tomas falls in love with Ilona, a Hungarian dissident also attending school in East Germany. Their love, its fate, and Tomas's memory of it dominate this second narrative.

Meanwhile, Erlendur Sveinsson and his fellow police detectives begin to slowly unravel the knot and chase the various strands that emerge. (All the while Erlendur deals with his not entirely satisfying personal life.) The strands - and the two narratives - are eventually made to come together. This aspect of the story is a completely satisfying police procedural.

The book contains a murder mystery, a spy tale, and a love story, but it is the haunting description of life in East Germany that lifts the reading experience to higher level. And yet, Indridason's characters do not simplistically equate Stalinist regimes with socialism. Indeed, most have retained their ideals years later. A stupendously good read; intelligent and nuanced. Highest recommendation. show less

Another wonderful ride by this great Icelandic author. Tomas, from Iceland, goes to the University in Leipzig at the turn of the century and becomes a devoted communist until he meets Ilona and she brings doubts into his mind. His story is woven into the ups and downs of Erlendur's investigation of a skeleton uncovered in a lake because of an earthquake. The woes of his children and his girlfriend continue through this book. Wonderful writing with strong character development and yet the story moves faster than the Icelandic landscape.