The year is 2012 when police officer Helgi is called away from his vacation to work on the case of a missing writer. He loves nothing more than sitting in his late father's dusty bookshop, surrounded by books he'll probably never sell, settling in for a long session of reading. His boss informs him that Iceland's best-known mystery writer, Elin Jonsdottir, has been reported missing after not turning up for several appointments with friends. Although he's disappointed that his holiday (which included visiting with his elderly mother) has been cut short, he's excited to try to figure out what happened to Elin, especially since there's a literary aspect. To help motivate him, he brings along some books from "Golden Age" mystery writers that feature disappearances. Back in Reykjavik, he begins by speaking with the people closest to Elin: her editor Rut and Rut's husband Thor as well as retired judge Lovisa. They had all been at school together many years ago and had kept their close friendships alive, meeting for regularly scheduled outings. It seems no one has heard from Elin for over a week and since she refuses to use a cell phone, they have no idea how to get hold of her. Meanwhile, Helgi has recently started a new relationship with the calm and gentle Anita, which is a relief after his last girlfriend. Helgi has never told anyone, but his former partner Bergthora was abusive to him, culminating in a horrific attack that finally forced him to leave her. She has tried to contact Helgi, but now she has resorted to stalking his new girlfriend Anita, alerting Helgi that something must be done to stop Bergthora.

I had a lot of problems with this novel, starting with:

Sort of shoe-horned into the story are a few chapters from the perspective of Hulda Stefansdottir, who held Helgi's job before him with the police. Hulda has apparently also disappeared. Even more shocking, no one in the police force (her former co-workers) seems that bothered. There is a box of Hulda's belongings in Helgi's office that he intends to "sort through" to see if he can find any clues to her disappearance, but he never gets around to it. There are several chapters from Hulda's point of view in the mid 1970s sprinkled throughout the story, from her time as a police officer struggling with a male-dominated and misogynistic police force, but nothing that adds to what might caused her disappearance. I'm sure maybe this is part of a long arc over several novels to get to the bottom of what happened to her, but it's not very helpful to anyone reading this as a standalone novel. Her disappearance is mentioned followed by some random chapters from 40 years ago and then nothing . . .

There is also a story of a long-ago bank robbery where a guard was killed. One person, Einar, was arrested for the robbery (although it's never explained how he was caught) and sentenced to a prison term. His accomplice was never identified. This was another strange aspect to this story as it seems the police only ever interviewed Einar following his arrest. If they'd done any research into his background, his potential accomplices would have been pretty obvious.

Then Elin's life doesn't add up. She dropped out of law school and worked as a teacher for a year. Afterwards, she returned to Reykjavik and STARTED teacher training college. After she had been working as a teacher. For a year. With apparently no qualifications.

Another ridiculous thing is when the mystery of Elin's disappearance is apparently solved, Helgi doesn't follow up or confirm any of it. He simply calls everyone he's interviewed as part of the disappearance and repeats what he's been told. He doesn't check to see if any of it is true, he just accepts it and repeats the story back to all of the people concerned about Elin. Would a police officer really not check the facts before claiming the case was solved and telling everyone?

The story is interesting and engaging, but lots of head-scratchers and things that don't add up makes this a disappointing overall read.