Just couldn't finish this one.

I thought I'd give it a try as it sounded intriguing. A body is found in a glacier 30 years after the person had gone missing. Konrad, a retired detective, had been on the case looking for the missing person.

Not sure if it was the format on my tablet or what but this was just very hard to read. Couldn't tell where one conversation ended and the other started. Very wordy and, after the initial discovery of the body, slow. ( )

This is my first Indridason book, although he's quite renowned. I wasn't sure what to expect, and the opening chapters are a bit grim, almost "grimy" feeling. However, the story grew on me, and I got quite invested in Konrád and the other characters.

In addition to bring a crime thriller, on another level this story is a tableau of Iceland the way it IS... not the way we might romanticize it as tourists. Really insightful - recommend! I will now seek out other works by Indridason.

Thankful to Netgalley and the publisher (Minotaur) for the ARC! ( )

Notre petite bibliothèque de village vient d’inaugurer un rayon de livres audio et j’ai voulu saluer cette initiative en en empruntant un. Comme il n’y a pour l’instant pas beaucoup de titres, mon choix s’est porté sur un polar venu du nord, pas vraiment mon style de lecture, mais il s’agit d’une grande plume islandaise, çà ne peut qu’être bon pour ma culture.
Certes ce n’est pas le titre le plus connu d’Arnaldur Indriðason, et ceci explique peut-être cela, mais je crois que je me suis plutôt ennuyée pendant cette lecture audio (et pourtant, le lecteur lisait un peu trop vite à mon goût !), où je n’ai pas vraiment trouvé le suspens ou l’atmosphère que j’espérais. En fait, la résolution de l’enquête m’importait peu, de même que les états d’âme de l’inspecteur. Le polar n’est pas un genre pour moi, cette lecture audio le confirme.

Perfectly fine but fairly Route 1 Scandi noir-type book. Nothing much stands out. ( )

I’m drawn to crime fiction set in countries about which I otherwise know very little. I consider these books to be travelogues with a dangerous edge, and I usually end up doing some research on the country in question when I finish the book.

I thought I would experience that same effortless immersion in the world of Detective Konrad, whom readers first met in The Shadow District, but I was oddly detatched throughout the novel. Perhaps it was because the narrative was told from only one point of view (with one exception toward the end that was so jarring I was taken out of the story). Maybe it was due to the very tight plotline; with a few exceptions, the story moved back and forth on the thin thread that connected two murders occuring many years ago with present day events.

Konrad is a nicely developed character, as are some of his colleagues – namely the formidable Marta, who is Konrad’s source of information as a member of the CID from which Konrad has now retired. Readers meet Konrad’s son, daughter-in-law, and late wife as well; they are largely peripheral and not pertinent to the story.

I did not feel that I lost context, not having read The Shadow District, but I do wonder if I would have felt more connected with the story, characters, and world of The Darkness Knows if I had read the first book first. The fact that I now want to read said book speaks to my level of engagement in Konrad’s world, even if I did feel a bit of relief when the book ended – and it ended very darkly, indeed. With the exception of that ending – that gasp in the last ten minutes of the book – the edginess I have come to expect in Scandinavian and Eastern European crime fiction is not present.

The English translation is clumsy in parts, which is not a drawback for me because I find the occasional not-quite-right translated sentiment to be quite charming. I’m intrigued by a possible story arc involving Konrad’s father, which is why I want to read the first book in the Detective Konrad cycle (not sure yet if I would call it a series).

The Darkness Knows gets three stars; the story line was well thought out, I’m intrigued by a possible plot line that will cover more than one volume, and I wish I would have been more connected to the characters and world created in this book. ( )