Voices

Voices is the third in the Inspector Erlendur series, following Silence of the Grave and Tainted Blood. Erneldur is a fairly dour Icelandic detective, and this novel is set in the run-up to Christmas at a large Reykjavik hotel. When Santa's needed for a party at the hotel, a maid goes to look for quiet old doorman who lives in the hotel's basement. But she finds him dead.

Erlendur is a detective with personal problems - not least of which is his ex-junkie daughter, and the memory of a brother who died when he was young and for whom he still feels guilt.

As is the way with these books, nothing is quite as it seems with the dead man once having been a child star, some dubious tourists, and shifty hotel workers. The Erlendur books aren't the fastest paced, but I still enjoy the bleakness of them. They're well worth reading if you like your Scandinavian crime fiction - and there's plenty of it about!