The Shadow District (Flovent and Thorson Thrillers, #1)

by Arnaldur Indridason

Victoria Cribb (Translator)

OLD CRIMES, NEW CONSEQUENCES

THE PAST
In wartime Reykjavik, a young woman is found strangled behind the National Theatre, a rough and dangerous area of the city known as ‘the shadow district’. An Icelandic detective and a member of the American military police are on the trail of a brutal killer.

THE PRESENT
A 90-year-old man is discovered dead on his bed, smothered with his own pillow. Konrad, a former detective now bored with retirement, finds newspaper cuttings in the dead man’s home reporting the shadow district murder that date back to the second world war. It’s a crime that Konrad remembers, having grown up in the same neighbourhood.

A MISSING LINK
Why, after all this time, would an old crime resurface? Did the police arrest the wrong man? How are these cases linked across the decades? Will Konrad's link to the past help him solve the case and finally lay the ghosts of wartime Reykjavik to rest?

THE SHADOW DISTRICT IS THE FIRST IN A MAJOR NEW SERIES OF NOVELS FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER ARNALDUR INDRIDASON

• ISBN10: 1911215051
• ISBN13: 9781911215059
• Publish Date: 18 May 2017 (first published 1 May 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 8 April 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Harvill Secker
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 368
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9781911215059

Reviews

[dpfaef]

The Shadow District is the first book in a new series Reykjavik Wartime Mysteries by Arnaldur Indriðason.
Moving from past to present, the book explores the death of a 90-year-old man whom during World War II investigated the murder of a young woman. To add another layer to the story, Konrad, a retired policeman is looking into the death as he believes it was a murder, not just an old man who died peacefully in his sleep.
Indriðason weaves a compelling story of wartime Reykjavik, just on the verge of independence from Danish rule, dealing with the onset of American soldiers fraternizing with Icelanders.
While I noticed that in places the translation was “rough” I don’t believe that it detracted from the book.
I am very interested to see the direction Indriðason will take this new series.

This review was originally posted on The Pfaeffle Journal