Arnaldur Indridason

Now that winter approaches, what better to read than a mystery set in Iceland? Harlan Coben calls Arnaldur Indridason’s police procedurals the best series he’s read this year. The hero, a police detective in Reykjavik, is a bit quirky: divorced for decades, he spends his nights reading accounts of travelers who lost their lives in snowstorms. Erlendur's cases at first seem impossible to solve: a seventy-something man found bludgeoned to death in his apartment, an old skeleton unearthed in the foundations of a new house, a doorman with no friends found dead in his room in the hotel basement. But Erlendur carefully fleshes out the few leads he gets, questions everyone and brings the investigations to a satisfying, suspenseful close. A bit of luck and his daughter’s underworld connections help out as well. Jar City came first, but I liked Silence of the Grave (his second) and Voices (his third) best.