Book Review - Strange Shores by Arnaldur Indridason

Police Detective Erlendur is on leave and returns to the area of his childhood in the countryside in the east of Iceland. Cold and harsh, the landscape has been the scene of his greatest childhood trauma – losing his 8 year old brother in an unexpected blizzard. Erlendur seeks answers not only to his own story but also to a mystery of a missing woman, lost in the snow many years before. Mystery novels take many shapes and this is far from a straight forward police procedural. The landscape and the weather are part of the story. Age and memory haunt many characters and the cold is visceral. Did the mystery of his brother's loss influence his becoming a policeman? Why can't he leave a mystery alone? Why do we need answers? Indridason remains one of my favourite authors. Wendy