Erlendur is a young officer assigned to traffic duties. He is not yet a detective. He works nights. Reykjavík’s nights are full of car crashes, robberies, fights, drinking, and sometimes an unexplained death. One night a homeless man Erlendur knows is found drowned. Then a young woman on her way home from a club vanishes and both cases go cold. But Erlendur’s instincts tell him that the fates of these two victims are worth pursuing. He is inexorably drawn into a world where everyone is either in the dark or on the run.

При изкопни работи на строителен обект е открит скелет на неизвестно лице, заровено на това място вероятно преди няколко десетилетия. Чий е скелетът? На мъж или на жена, на жертва или на убиец? Кой и кога е бил погребан? Дали става дума за обикновено убийство или за дълго отлагано възмездие? Или може би някой просто се е изгубил и е замръзнал в исландския сняг? Случаят е възложен на екип, ръководен от полицейския инспектор Ерлендур. Опирайки се на малкото улики, с които разполага, Ерлендур, заедно с колегите си Сигурдур Оли и Елинборг, се заема да издири хората, живели по тези места през Втората световна война. Полицаите попадат на не една драматична история. Любов, предателства и разбити сърца, гняв, насилие и страх, семейна лоялност и семеен срам постепенно изплуват от сенките на времето и макар миналото да тъне в гробна тишина, след упорито разследване и множество обрати истината излиза наяве.

Reykjavík, August 1941. When a travelling salesman is found murdered in a basement flat, killed by a bullet from a Colt .45, the police initially suspect a member of the Allied occupation force. The British are in the process of handing over to the Americans and the streets are crawling with servicemen whose relations with the local women are a major cause for concern. Flóvent, Reykjavík’s sole detective, is joined by the young military policeman Thorson. Their investigation focuses on a family of German residents, the retired doctor Rudolf Lunden and his estranged son Felix, who is on the run, suspected of being a spy. Flóvent and Thorson race to solve the case and to stay ahead of US counter-intelligence, amid rumours of a possible visit by Churchill. As evidence emerges of dubious experiments carried out on Icelandic schoolboys in the 1930s, Thorson becomes increasingly suspicious of the role played by the murdered man’s former girlfriend, Vera, and her British soldier lover.

A 90-year-old man is found dead in his bed, smothered with his own pillow. On his desk the police find newspaper cuttings about a murder case dating from the Second World War, when a young woman was found strangled behind Reykjavík’s National Theatre. Konrád, a former detective, is bored with retirement and remembers the crime. He grew up in ‘the shadow district’, a rough neighbourhood bordered by the National Theatre and an abattoir. Why would someone be interested in that crime now? He starts his own unofficial enquiry. Alternating between Konrád’s investigation and the original police inquiry, we discover that two girls had been...

На дне обмелевшего озера Клейварватн обнаружен скелет с пробитым черепом. Рядом — привязанный веревкой радиопередатчик русского производства. Инспектор Эрленд из полиции Рейкьявика берется за расследование обстоятельств гибели. Следы уводят в глубь десятилетий, в эпоху «холодной войны», тотального шпионажа, социалистических идей и подпольной политической деятельности студентов-исландцев в ГДР. Дело грозит обернуться международным скандалом. «Пересыхающее озеро» — не просто захватывающий шпионский детектив, созданный признанным мастером, исландским писателем Арнальдом Индридасоном. Этот роман выходит далеко за рамки жанра и рассказывает о надеждах и разочарованиях, мечтах и личных драмах поколения «холодной войны», которые спустя десятилетия оказались вынесены на всеобщий суд.