Operation Napoleon

August 1, 2011
Near the outset of this kinetic thriller from Indridason (Jar City), Kristín, a lawyer with the Iceland Foreign Ministry in Reykjavík, receives a phone call from her younger brother, Elías, who tells her he's part of a team on its way to the remote Vatnajökull glacier. Almost immediately, Kristín finds herself being pursued by assassins tied to a covert American military operation to retrieve the wreckage of a German plane that crashed on the glacier in the closing days of WWII with, oddly, German and U.S. servicemen aboard. Dismissing official disinformation about the mission's purpose, Kristín flings herself into the thick of a black ops caper to uncover a secret so unsavory that the American military would kill to keep it quiet. Indridason takes an invigoratingly fresh approach to one of the best known conspiracy theories about Nazi and American relations. The cliché-riddled translation won't stop readers from racing to learn the final secret.

September 15, 2011

In the closing days of World War II, a German bomber crashes on a remote glacier in Iceland. Buried by a brutal snowstorm, it is lost from view but not from the troubled memories of the few who knew of its clandestine mission. Decades later, an Icelandic woman receives a garbled satellite phone call from her brother, an outdoorsman crossing the glacier by snowmobile. He mentions soldiers, guns, and men digging an airplane out of the ice...and then he disappears. Soon her own life is in danger, as powerful forces strive to keep a terrible secret hidden. Fans of Indrioason's popular and critically praised mysteries featuring Icelandic detective Erlendur will find that this title--first published in 1999 and only now translated into English--is a different style of book, more akin to the adventure tales of Clive Cussler or the historical-conspiracy thrillers of Dan Brown. The secrets-of-the-Nazis theme is a little timeworn, but the fast-paced action and dialog, smoothly translated into colloquial English, keep the reader hooked, and the dour Icelandic setting will appeal to fans of other Scandinavian thrillers. VERDICT Fans of Indrioason's detective stories may pick up this stand-alone thriller, but its greatest appeal will be to fans of international action, adventure, and intrigue.--Bradley A. Scott, Corpus Christi, TX

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2011
Late in WWII, a German plane crash-lands on an Icelandic glacier, but the plane is never found. For the next 55 years, U.S. intelligence officials seek the location of the wreck, and when the glacier finally disgorges it, a clandestine special-ops group is sent to recover the plane and protect a secret that could undermine global political stability. A young woman named Kristin learns of the U.S. forces on the glacier, and soon she is running for her life. Indridason, the critically acclaimed author of Hypothermia (2010), tries his hand here at historical thrillers, which would seem to play against the strengths he displays in writing about the gloomy, introspective Erlendur, a thoroughly contemporary Reykjavik police inspector. Kristin has numerous escapes from the tireless and murderous Delta Force assassins who pursue her, but Indridason's stolid prose diminishes her derring-do, and the secret the U.S. is so desperate to keep strains historical credulity. The author's fans will want to see what he is up to in a different subgenre, but here's hoping Indridason is working on a new Erlendur novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)