Frozen Assets

November 15, 2010
When the body of a young man is found floating off the Icelandic village of Hvalík, no-nonsense cop Gunnhildur "Gunna" Gísladóttir, the star of British journalist Bates's crackling fiction debut, assumes it's an accidental drowning. But when Gunna and her team discover that the victim worked for a Reykjavík PR firm with ties to a contentious local aluminum smelter project despised by the environmental group Clean Iceland, they realize that homicide, rare as it is in the island nation, is more likely. Thrown into the mix is a mysterious and incendiary blogger known as Skandalblogger with the inside scoop on all things economic and political in Iceland, not to mention societal gossip, and a young crime reporter shadowing Gunna for a story. By setting the action in the months leading up to the 2008 banking collapse, Bates, who lived in Iceland for a decade, imbues this series first with a palpable authenticity.

November 15, 2010

Corporate and official malfeasance make police work just as hot in Iceland as anywhere else on earth.

A drowning victim bobs up in the chilly waters of the fishing village Hvalvík. Even after a tattoo allows station chief Sgt. Gunnhildur Gísladóttir to identify the dead man as Einar Eyjólfur Einarsson, the Spearpoint account manager recently taken off the Hvalvík smelter and given a job testing the chewing-gum market, big questions remain. Did he fall or was he pushed? More to the point, if he fell, how did he first get 100 kilometers from the Reykjavík dinner, where he was last seen seriously drinking, to his watery grave? Gunna and her tiny force—Officer Haddi and whichever auxiliary troops she can beg or borrow—are eager to put the screws on Spearpoint CEO Sigurjóna Huldudóttir and her husband, Environmental Affairs Minister Bjarni Jón Bjarnason, but they seem to be the only government employees who are. Chief Inspector Vilhjálmur Traustason, Gunna's glorious leader off in Keflavík, keeps telling her to put on the brakes before she steps on too many highly placed toes. Justice Minister Lárus Jóhann Magnússon is even more wary of uncovering a possible conspiracy.

Though Bates is English-born, his blistering debut reads more like an American procedural than the British product, right down to a denouement as acridly unsatisfying as today's headlines.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2010

Set in an Icelandic coastal village, Bates's debut offers a twist on the Nordic crime wave--the author is a Brit (albeit one who spent a decade living in Iceland). When the body of a young PR executive is discovered in the waters off of sleepy Hvalvik, Sgt. Gunnhildur "Gunna" Gisladottir, a widow and mother of two, suspects foul play. She slowly pieces together the man's connection to an aggressive environmental conservation group and their opposition to an aluminum smelter project, a scheme backed by a corrupt government minister. Meanwhile, an anonymous blogger is posting incendiary statements about the minister's wife, and a group of journalists also sniff around the case. As more secrets come tumbling out, Gunna identifies the probable killer but struggles to catch him before the powers that be shut down her investigation. VERDICT Although the government conspiracy and muckraking angle is reminiscent of Stieg Larsson, the comparison ends there, as flat prose and predictable plotting help evaporate much of the tension. Still, the flinty Gunna is a likable sleuth and should appeal to fans of Helene Tursten's Detective Inspector Huss.--Annabelle Mortensen, Skokie P.L., IL

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2010
A body found in the harbor presents a challenge for the Hvalvik, Iceland, police force, led by Sergeant Gunnhildur Gisladottir (Gunna the Cop), which generally deals only with speeding drivers and disorderly drunks. Rejecting the theory that the case is an accidental drowning, Gunna finds a link to an earlier hit-and-run fatality and is on the trail of a canny Norwegian suspected of more than one murder. Along the way, a web of corruption is uncovered, encompassing the federal government and the private sector and involving the minister of Environmental Affairs and his wife, the hot-tempered head of a prominent public-relations firm. Intermittent entries by the anonymous Skandalblogger add spice to the investigation, which is executed efficiently by Gunna, a no-nonsense 36-year-old widow and mother of two teenagers. British author Bates, a former Iceland resident, captures the chilly spirit of Nordic crime fiction in what is the apparent start of a promising series with a distinctly appealing protagonist. Fans of Arnaldur Indridasons Reykjav-k mysteries will want to add Bates to their reading lists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)