The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indriðason
Written by Ashley Kelmore, Posted in Reviews
Four Stars
Best for:
People who enjoy a good mystery.
In a nutshell:
A skeleton has been found in a drying lake bed. Might be suicide, except there’s Cold War-era Soviet equipment tied around the skeleton’s body.
Worth quoting:
N/A
Why I chose it:
I had bought a bunch of this author’s books all at once, and finally decided to pick up this last one.
Review:
These books are either growing on me a bit, or the story within this one was just a bit more interesting to me. Not sure, but I’m not complaining, because after reading the first hundred pages on Friday, I basically devoured the last 300 today.
The premise: a skeleton is found in a lake and associated with some Cold War era Soviet equipment. The person likely was killed in the late 60s / early 70s. So Detective Erlendur and his colleagues need to figure out if anyone who was reported missing around that time might be this victim.
At the same time, we are in the memories of an unnamed man who was a young member of the Icelandic Socialist Party, and who was invited to study in East Germany, Leipzig, during the 60s. He’s all in on the ideals of socialism, but his experiences are getting odd. Is someone spying on him and his friends?
I think what I most enjoyed about this book is that I both sort of knew what was coming but also was surprised by the ending. There are another 5-7 (unsure if all have been translated into English) in this series; I think I’ll likely get around to reading all of them in the next couple of years.
Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it.
