The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indriðason: A review

The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indriðason
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm glad I stuck with this series of Icelandic mysteries by Arnaldur Indriðason, even though I found the first two entries rather disappointing. This third in the series began to live up to my hopes for it with a dynamic plot and some interesting characters that made me want to know more about them. It also featured a look back at the Cold War of the late 1950s and the constant spying that seems to have been a part of daily life in Eastern European countries of that time.

Once again we meet that morose fellow, the thoroughly uncharismatic Inspector Erlendur of the Reykjavik Police. He's as messed up as ever as he continues to be haunted by the presumed death of his younger brother when they were children. The brother disappeared in a blizzard and was never found. This touchstone event of Erlendur's life has given him an obsession with long-cold missing person cases. In The Draining Lake he has another one.

It begins with a hydrologist checking on a lake. A recent earthquake has opened cracks in the earth's surface and is causing the lake to slowly drain. As the hydrologist checks the current level of the lake, she discovers some human bones. In fact, it is an intact skeleton that had been formerly hidden by the lake's waters. She calls the police, and, even though Erlendur is supposed to be on leave, his boss, knowing of his interest in such cases, contacts him and he is assigned to investigate.

He and his team check out the skeleton which turns out to be tied to an old Soviet radio receiver that had apparently been used to try to spy on an American military base in Iceland. Also, the skeleton had been in the water for decades and is that of a man with a very large hole in its skull. It seems likely that this was a case of murder.

Erlendur's team starts by investigating unsolved missing persons cases from the '50s and slowly Erlendur's attention turns to the possible Soviet or Eastern European connection and the Cold War cloak-and-dagger activities of the period.

The story also unfolds on a second track as Indriðason introduces us to a group of Icelandic students who went to Leipzig, East Germany, to study in the 1950s. They were active socialists and they received funding to attend the university in Leipzig. A central figure of this group was Tomas, a naive and idealistic young man who found himself in above his depth in the police state that was East Germany then. He fell in love with a young Hungarian woman as her country was exploding in resistance against Soviet domination. She was active in resistance in Leipzig and Tomas, completely unknowingly, betrays her to one of the cloak-and-dagger types. She is arrested and never heard from again.

Tomas is expelled and returned to Iceland but he spends the rest of his life trying to find out what happened to the woman he loved and lost.

I found the way that this narrative unfolded intriguing. The two threads, the modern investigation and the backstory of the Icelandic students in Leipzig, intertwined almost seamlessly, a skillful bit of writing.

Also, we get it all in the context of Erlendur's personal life as he continues to struggle with loneliness and his dysfunctional relationships with his two adult children. He still explodes in irrational anger at those children from time to time - after all, he was the adult in the relationship and he was the one who abandoned them - but there are some glimmers of self-awareness, as well. Maybe the relationships are not a lost cause.

There is one bright point in Erlendur's life. He has tentatively - very tentatively - begun a romantic relationship with a woman he met in the last book. Maybe she'll finally be able to break his dour, melancholy shell and let a smile break through. Perhaps we'll find out in the next book in the series, which I now definitely plan to read.

View all my reviews

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

Search This Blog