First, thanks to the publisher for an ARC of this book!

This was my first Icelandic mystery/thriller, and it definitely will not be my last. Having been to Iceland and taken a tour with a guide, I was immediately hooked by the discovery of the body on the glacier by the tour group. This story was about the 30 year-old cold case that was reopened by the discovery of that body.

I think the thing that works best in this story is the pacing. Because it's the reopening of a cold case, you expect it to be slower than a thriller built around a murder investigation in real-time, and this works extremely well for letting you get to know the characters involved - and there are a lot that you meet. Konrad is a sympathetic main character because you can feel his frustration over not solving this murder 30 years earlier, and as you read there are a lot of nuances to his character that come out, things in his past that shaped him and by extension shaped how he views/his relationships with other people and his job. This story felt at times less like a mystery/thriller and more like a character study for Konrad, and I was totally on board with that.

The resolution was satisfying to me mostly because I didn't really have any suspicions until the very end, but I was enjoying the story anyway. There were some small things mentioned in passing that I thought could have been left out or expanded on more, but they may be addressed in the next books. Either way, they do not detract from this book enough to bother me.

I have been a fan of Indridason’s writing for over 14 years starting with Jar City and Detective Erlendur. I love the way that he not only captures the characters and their personalities, but also the geography of Icelandic towns and cultures.
In ‘The Darkness Knows’ , a retired detective has one unsolved case that he just cannot let go of. When the prime suspect for over 30 years dies while still maintaining his innocence, Detective Konrad is pulled back into the investigation. He follows old school detective techniques complete with witness interviews and stake-outs. Solving a 30 year old crime is difficult enough without many of the witnesses turning up dead.
By following the trail, Konrad is able to solve the mystery and I’m hoping it’s not his last case during his retirement!

The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason is a superb read with a well defined plot and characters. Well worth the read!

Konrad is a retired police detective, but he is haunted by an unsolved disappearance case from 30 years ago. Just as he thought he had put it behind him, the body of the victim is found. Was his suicide or murder? Even though retired, he is drawn back into the case conducting his own investigation and its connection to an unsolved hit and run many years ago. As Konrad doggedly questions people connected to the case, he realizes the first investigation had been botched the first time and needs to set it right. This is the first book of and Icelandic detective series. It was a good solid start, and I look forward to reading future installments.

An absolutely excellent book, but the ARC supplied by St. Martin's Press was so mangled in its formatting that it was difficult and unpleasant to read. All the paragraphing was missing, words were occasionally run together, and there were random spaces in the text.

If any self-published writer can these days produce a near flawlessly formatted book using readily available software tools, why is a major publisher like St. Martins sending out crap like this when they are supposed to be providing an ARC for review purposes? Such lazy and careless work by the publisher seems to me to be disrespectful to a very fine author who deserves so very much better.

What a gorgeously atmospheric procedural thriller. This was my first introduction to Konrád, and I really enjoyed his character. The writing was thick and beautiful, and it was a petty quick read. Detective novels are not typically my forte, but I heavily enjoyed reading The Darkness Knows. I highly recommend this.

The book starts off interestingly enough with a cold case and the detective, now retired, who initially worked that case. The detective begins to review that case and re-investigate… And uncovers some new leads. I found the book to move at an extremely slow pace, and in an awkward writing style which was off-putting. There were a lot of characters, some who showed up quite a few times, but it was difficult to keep track because they would pop up at unexpected times and it was hard to make the connections. I thought the solution was reasonable but quite intricate - maybe unnecessarily so? And, I did find that there was an awful lot of backstory about the detective, which I did not find engaging and it only served to drag the story out. I wasn’t sure we needed all that information because none of it made the character more likable.

Disclosure: I received this book in exchange for a fair review. Below is my review from Goodreads:

Amazing mystery!

Konrad is a retired detective in Iceland. His last case remained unsolved. They never found the body. Now, many years later, the body has surfaced (literally) from a glacier. The one suspect, never charged, is once again being questioned and wants to talk to Konrad. Konrad battles his own demons and doesn't want to get involved. But the detective in him will not let things go, and he reluctantly starts to investigate. Then it appears a second case, ruled accidental hit and run, may be tied into the first murder. Konrad finds himself investigating, and that doesn't sit too well with some of his former colleagues.

From the first page, this book had me. From the finding of the body to weaving in what happened so many years ago, this story was artfully crafted. The mystery builds and builds, with different layers making themselves known as the novel progresses. We also learn a lot about Konrad and family (son Hugo and deceased wife). And, we learn that Konrad has a mild deformity, as one of his arms is a bit withered. Plus, this mystery eats at him. He was never fully into the one suspect, and now the trail is so many years cold. But his methodical mind keeps working at bits and pieces and he turns over some rocks that may have been better left alone.

The ending blew me away. Just completely left my mouth open and that feeling of now what did the author pull over on me! The novel is just amazing; highly recommended reading.

"The Darkness Knows" by Arnaldur Indridason slowly builds tension as retired Detective Konrad ultimately solves a cold case and connected hit-and-run murder. Set in Iceland, this noir story grips the reader along with the detective in the pursuit of answers to the mysteries surrounding both crimes. Detective Konrad is a complex and appealing, yet flawed character, and the reader gets to know him well in his various roles as husband, widower, father, brother, son, grandfather and policeman. Thank you to #NetGalley for access to a pre-release copy of this first in what will hopefully be many books in the series.

I love Icelandic mysteries but I must admit this is the first one I believe I have read by this author. It appears to be the first in a new series and I look forward to future ones.

A retired detective, the discovery of a body missing 30 years, a suspect who claims up to his death that he didn't kill him, and the memories of the investigation drive the story and plunge Detective Konrad back into a past case that has haunted him for a long time.

A little slow in places but all in all a good read with a surprising ending and a tenacious main character who is determined to get to the bottom of this cold case. I think I will go back to his earlier books and try them.

4.5 stars

Damn, this is a good book! Excellent prose, nuanced & skillfully drawn characters, & a messy cold case investigation that feels frustratingly realistic in its gaps & dead ends. The emotional complexity subtly surfaces as you get to know the characters, it never feels forced or pasted onto the narrative framework. Good writing & a good story all in one book. I’ll be re-reading this some time.

[What I liked:]

•I really like the writing style. It’s smooth, gives striking details on setting & characters without intruding on the flow of the story, & is beautiful at the right moments.

•This is an impressively constructed mystery. It’s complex in a very realistic feeling way. There aren’t red herrings in the sense of suspicious characters planted as literary diversions, but rather the messiness & dead ends in the investigation are all relevant & all too easy to imagine happening in real life.

•There are a lot of characters introduced for a 350 page novel, but each one is memorable, unique, & exists for a reason. And Konrad, the MC, never gets lost in the mix. Hjaltalin & Herdis in particular were very compelling characters for me. Konrad himself is a wonderful MC, with understandable motivations & flaws & relatable reactions.

•The emotional impact of this book is at once subtle & strong. The story isn’t melodramatic, yet it doesn’t shy away from showing the quiet & devastating ways so many lives were ruined by the fallout of a crime from 30 years ago. Guilt, pain, loss, rage, & more. It’s very human in its portrayals.

•I’d never read a novel set in Iceland before, & I’ve never been there either. The setting gives a strong sense of place I could visualize without getting lost in long descriptions. The translator/writer also did a great job contextualizing terms (like government institutions or local alcohols) without distracting from the narrative.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•There was a lot hinted at with Svanhildur, & I was expecting some resolution there that never came. It felt like a loose end that never got wrapped up.

•I also feel that the mystery of Konrad’s father’s death/Konrad’s feelings about the issue don’t get satisfactorily concluded. It almost felt like it was being teased as the focus of a sequel, but I’m not sure if that was intended.

•I stayed fully engaged until the end, but the book did start to feel like it was stretching out kind of long towards the end. It’s not that the pacing dropped off, so maybe it was an intentional choice to stretch things out so long, but I was starting to get tired of nothing but loosely connected hints popping up. I think if the clues had started to draw together gradually, a little sooner, rather than just falling into place suddenly at the end, I’d have liked it better. But it’s true that cold case investigations aren’t neat in real life, so I can’t complain it’s not realistic.

CW: murder, alcoholism, domestic violence, police brutality, suicide, infidelity

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

352 pages

3 stars

Konrad is now retired from the Reykjavik force. He receives a call in the middle of the night from the pathologist saying he must come and see something at her office. He is shocked to recognize the frozen body of businessman Sigurvin. He disappeared some thirty years earlier. They thoroughly investigated the case, but other than a good suspect, it remained unsolved.

He reluctantly decides to assist the team. His first task to to speak with Hjalatin who is in prison. He was the primary suspect at the time of the disappearance, the business partner of the missing man and he is saying that he will only speak to Konrad. Konrad tells himself that is all he is going to do on the case.

Then the book begins to ramble. Konrad seems to wander about without a clue. This book is certainly not as well written or thought out as Mr. Indridason's previous novels. I have read all of them and this is the first clinker he has written. It starts out well, and I had great hope for the book. This is the first disappointing book I have read by this author. I hope the next book returns to his previous level of interest and excitement.

I want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for forwarding to me a copy of this book for me to read and review. The opinions expressed here are my own.