Jar City by Arnaldur Indriðason

From the jacket: “When a lonely old man is found dead in his Reykjavík flat, the only clues are a cryptic note left by the killer and a photograph of a young girl’s grave. Inspector Erlendur discovers that many years ago the victim was accused, but not convicted, of an unsolved crime, a rape. Did the old man’s past come back to haunt him? As Erlendur reopens this very cold case, he follows a trail of unusual forensic evidence, uncovering secrets that are much larger than the murder of one old man.”

My take: Both Nan and raidergirl3 recommended the Erlendur series to me when I was seeking out Icelandic fiction to read prior to our trip, and the folks at Goodreads concurred, giving it one of their better ratings for Icelandic books. However, life being what it was, I didn’t get a chance to start it until we found ourselves sitting in Keflavik Airport for several hours the morning of our arrival. But the deserted canteen provided the perfect spot to be sucked into the riveting world of Inspector Erlendur of the Reykjavik police force, called in to investigate the apparent murder of an elderly man.

Erlendur and his two detectives search the man’s apartment and eventually turn up an old photograph, which turns out to be of a young girl’s grave. Despite his underlings’ scoffing at his hunch that the picture is important, Erlendur insists on learning more. As they follow leads, they discover that many years earlier, the girl’s mother accused the dead man of raping her after he escorted her home from a party. But both the child and her mother are now dead, so they couldn’t have murdered the man, could they?

Jar City reminds me of the Swedish Wallander series (or, at least, the tv versions of them), and there is more than a passing similarity between the two Scandinavian policemen. The scenery in both is stark, the tone tends toward the darker side of police procedurals (although not as bleak as I’d feared), and the lead characters are both a bit of a mess, having destroyed all of the relationships they’ve ever been involved in, in part, you assume, because of their devotion to their jobs. In the case of this novel, Erlendur is long-divorced with two grown children, both of whom battle addiction. His daughter, Eva Lind, claims she’s trying to get clean, but she shows up at his apartment acting strangely.

Erlendur must juggle both his personal life and his work life to try and make sense of either. But while neither is going to sort out easily or painlessly, you can’t help but root for the grizzled Icelander to come through in the end.

Pages: 290

The Physics of Imaginary Objects, by Tina May Hall

From the jacket: “The Physics of Imaginary Objects, in fifteen stories and a novella, offers a very different kind of short fiction, blending story with verse to evoke fantasy, allegory, metaphor, love, body, mind, and nearly every sensory perception. Weaving in and out of the space that connects life and death in mysterious ways, these texts use carefully honed language that suggests a newfound spirituality.”

My take: I picked up this slim volume from the library’s new book shelf by accident, mistaking it for another book whose title I can’t now recall. I kept with it because of its haunting, lyrical use of language. Hard to categorize, it’s probably less stories as the blurb suggests but instead a thematic collection of prose poems focusing on love and loss.

Because many of the pieces were somewhat distressing or disturbing, I can’t say that I liked the book, but I equally can’t say that I did not. I found myself entranced by it, pulled in inextricably as if caught in the book’s gravity, compelled to read page after page as if in a trance. If dark prose compressed into a few pages of lyrical narrative is your thing, I’d recommend this for its beauty.

Pages: 160

Cats Are Weird and More Observations by Jeffrey Brown

From the jacket Powells’ blurb: “Cartoonist Jeffrey Brown’s drawings perfectly capture the humor and quirkiness of cats in all their strange and charming glory. Following the success of Cat Getting Out of a Bag, this all-new collection of color and black-and-white comic strips loosely follows the adventures of a pair of cats as they explore the world around them, indoors and out. Adventures include taking a nap, licking a shoe, attacking dust particles, hiding in cabinets, pouncing on fallen leaves, confronting the vacuum cleaner, patrolling the yard, and purring up a storm — all adorably rendered in Brown’s immediate and irresistible style. Sure to delight anyone who lives with cats and appreciates their sweet and batty behavior, this beautifully packaged gift book is the cat’s meow.”

My take: A Christmas gift from Sam hand delivered when he came to town earlier this fall, this graphic novel is the sequel to the beloved Cat Getting out of a Bag.

While I didn’t find this one quite as charming as the original, it still offered delightfully illustrated vignettes of a pair of cats doing catlike things. “Resistance Is Futile” portrays a cat demonstrating who the boss is to a pile of papers placed on a desk. “The Look” is familiar to anyone who has ever tried to avoid moving for fear of disturbing the cat dozing on their lap. And, honestly, “Evidence of Cat Ownership or Why Cats Can’t Have Nice Things” hit just a little too close to home in our present Age of Corey.

Overall, a sweet collection of feline-friendly comics and a pleasant way to spend an hour.

Pages: 108

I’m starting to feel like work is finally starting to come back to a manageable piece of my life, rather than the all-consuming, life-eating monster it was during October.

So let’s try to do some literary housecleaning posts this week. Still to come are reviews of Still to come are reviews of The Woman in White; Diamond Ruby; Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children; 13 Little Blue Envelopes; Ninth Ward; Will Grayson, Will Grayson; The Physics of Imaginary Objects; and Cats Are Weird and More Observations.

But rather than review those, I’ll give you a quick review of a beloved classic, which is the most recent thing I’ve finished:

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
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This past weekend was busy, but not as busy as the previous weekend, where I failed to figure out how to clone myself in order to be at every author reading I wanted to catch during the 2011 National Book Festival.

I’m way behind on my book reviews, but figured I’d start off with the one I just finished. Still to come are reviews of The Woman in White, Diamond Ruby, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, and Ninth Ward.

A Taste for Death, by P.D. James

From the jacket: “Their throats slit, the two men have turned the old vestry of St. Matthew’s Church red with blood. In death united, in life no men could have been more disparate: one a baronet and minister of the Crown; the other an alcoholic derelict. Commander Adam Dalgliesh believes that a single thread connects the two lives, one that will lead him to the killer. Instead, he soon finds himself following a tangled skein of lofty emotions and base ambitions into Britain’s enigmatic upper class — and into a labyrinth of ever-widening scandal and murder without end…”

My take: Commander Adam Dalgliesh has been named to head up a special division at Scotland Yard — one that investigates serious crimes that needed to be handled delicately, such as those of a political nature. Chief Inspector John Massingham and Inspector Kate Miskin round out the higher echelon of the team. Called to a Paddington church to investigate the deaths of a homeless man and a baronet, the team finds their first case seems to offer the initial and obvious answer that the rich man murdered the poor one and then killed himself with his own straight razor. However, the case seems to be a little too pat for Dalgliesh, who had a passing acquaintance with Sir Paul Berowne. With underlings in tow, they investigate everyone remotely involved with the man, from his beautiful wife (who is carrying on with an obstetrician) to his estranged daughter (who is dating a known Marxist) to his haughty mother to his local party officials. Following up on two other deaths loosely tied to Berowne convince Dalgliesh that he is correct that a murderer is on the loose. But with everyone trying to hide something, will he be able to find the guilty party in time?

I picked this up at a library book sale, part of their “fill a bag” day. If I’d had to pay for it, I might not have picked it up. And, frankly, that might not have been a bad thing.

I like cozies. I like police procedurals that are light on grisly crime and heavy on keeping peace among quirky characters. I prefer mysteries that are light and read quickly and that offer me a happy ending. I am happy to work to figure out the whodunnit, and even happier if the author has outwitted me at the reveal (provided that I can see where I should have sussed out the criminal). And I want my books to have plot lines that are wrapped up at the end of the novel and not left dangling, leaving you to wonder if the author bothered to re-read her text before sending it in and whether the decline in editing you’ve noticed recently could possibly date back as far as 1986 to when this novel was published.

It took me a month to wallow through the description and elevated language of this novel, and I sympathized greatly with the detectives, who were busy sorting through a lot of useless details in search of the actual narrative of a man’s final weeks. Some characters (particularly a romance novelist constituent of Berowne’s) are well developed, but far too many others (such as Lady Berowne) are only lightly adapted sketches of common archetypes.

I don’t know whether this work is indicative of James’ abilities in general or her Dalgliesh series in specific or an anomaly in an otherwise stellar career. However, it definitely has left me disinterested in finding out more, and that would seem to be a flaw in any mystery series.

Pages: 497