STRANGE SHORES: An Inspector Erlendur Novel.

New York:: St Martin's Minotaur, , (2014). Hardcover first edition -. Near fine in near fine dust jacket.. First US printing. The ninth novel featuring the Reykjavik police inspector Erlendur, one with an unforgettable ending. Erlendur has is on leave from his job and has returned to IcelandÕs remote Eastern Fjords. "He is camping very rough in the collapsing remains of the farmhouse his family abandoned after his younger brother, Bergur, disappeared in a savage blizzard that Erlendur barely survived. Walking the moors, Erlendur meets an old man named Boas who took part in the search for Bergur, and the voluble Boas tells him of another disappearance. A woman named Matthildur set out for her motherÕs house in 1942 and disappeared in another blizzard. Erlendur begins to visit surviving people who knew Matthildur, and he ultimately stitches together a tale of lies, betrayals, and murder. But all the while, it is BergurÕs disappearanceÑand ErlendurÕs guiltÑthat obsesses him. His interviews with people who knew Matthildur, all in their eighties and nineties, recall the voices of Norse sagas: pithy, concise, and very matter-of-fact about everything, including their own impending deaths."(Booklist) Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb. 296 pp.