The Girl by the Bridge

December 1, 2022

Claimant to a CWA Gold Dagger and two Glass Key awards, Indridason returns with series stalwart Konrad, a retired detective here called on to investigate the disappearance of a young woman who was smuggling drugs. The case gets tangled up with his meditations on his father's long-ago murder and the drowning of a little girl in the Reykjav�k city pond. With a 40,000-copy first printing.

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April 1, 2023
Generations of abuse are exposed when fate (or Iceland's renowned connectedness) draws retired Reykjavik detective Konr�d into a trio of mysteries that hit close to home. Konr�d agrees to help friends of his late wife find their missing granddaughter, who has become mixed up in a drug-smuggling scheme. At the same time, he's investigating the possibility that his loathsome father's murder is linked to his spiritual-medium scams. And when Konr�d visits Eygl�, the daughter of his father's crime partner, she implores him to help her discover the source of a young ghost's discontent. Konr�d is skeptical about the spiritual realm, but no stranger to the damage their fathers created, he resolves to help Eygl� find peace by looking into the girl's death. Konr�d, who instinctively digs up the truth, discovers a pedophile ring connecting the missing girl, Eygl�'s ghost, and his own disturbing family story. Indridason's storytelling flows as smoothly as ever here, and Konr�d, introduced in The Darkness Knows (2021) establishes himself as a compelling truth-seeker.

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May 8, 2023
Past and present are deeply intertwined in Indridason’s knotty yet rewarding second outing for retired Reykjavik detective Konrád (after The Darkness Knows). The plot is deliberately tangled: at the start, Konrád is investigating the disappearance of a young woman on behalf of her prominent grandparents, who are eager to avoid publicity about their granddaughter’s involvement with drugs. Eventually, he finds the woman dead, seemingly of an overdose, though Konrád has his doubts. Meanwhile, a medium named Eygló—the daughter of a friend of Konrád’s long-deceased father—has a vision of a girl who died in a Reykjavik pond in 1961, and enlists Konrád’s help to find out more. Konrád is skeptical of Eygló’s abilities, until his own ongoing investigation into his father’s unsolved murder turns up clear evidence of the woman’s clairvoyance. Before long, Konrád becomes determined to find the hidden connections between the trio of criss-crossing, decades-spanning killings—of his father, the girl in the pond, and the woman who “overdosed.” Indridason spins his multilayered narrative into an unnerving story of old crimes and their enduring reverberations, bringing it all to a powerful and well-earned denouement. This a treat for fans of brainy, complex mysteries.

Starred review from March 1, 2023
Unanswered questions from the past are not easily put to rest. An elderly couple contacts retired Reykjav�k police detective Konr�d for advice in dealing with Dann�, their wayward granddaughter, whom they haven't seen for a few days and who they suspect is working as a drug mule. This search becomes the anchor in a compelling mystery with deep themes and a complex plot, but even before the reader is introduced to the kindly couple, two other dark scenes are presented, casting a spectral shadow over all that follows. First, a young writer on an evening stroll sees a doll floating in the water near the city center and, upon closer examination, discovers a girl's corpse nearby. And second, in a flashback, Konr�d's friend Eygl� encounters a ghost while attending a young classmate's birthday party, a memory that will haunt her for decades. Konr�d is haunted by his own ghosts, especially the unsolved murder of his father more than 50 years ago. Soon Dann� is found dead under suspicious circumstances, and the case falls to Konr�d's old friend Marta at the CID, who asks him to continue on the case because he's developed a rapport with the grandparents. Suspicion falls on Dann�'s boyfriend, Lassi, who runs afoul of some ruthless characters. When Eygl� becomes convinced that her ghost is the girl in the pond, she presses Konr�d to find the man who saw her. Short, crisply written chapters move the action briskly along while keeping all the seemingly disparate pieces of the puzzle in the mix. Veteran Indridason weaves all these eerie elements together masterfully. Superb crime fiction from an acclaimed virtuoso.

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