Why read Silence of the Grave?

Book cover of Silence of the Grave

Book description

Building work in an expanding Reykjavik uncovers a shallow grave.

Years before, this part of the city was all open hills, and Erlendur and his team hope this is a typical Icelandic missing person scenario; perhaps someone once lost in the snow, who has lain peacefully buried for decades. Things…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Silence of the Grave as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Michael Ridpath

Author

I don’t think it is overly ambitious to claim that you can learn a lot about a country from its crime novels. I certainly did, devouring novels by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, Lilja Sigurdardóttir, Ragnar Jónasson, and the Englishman Quentin Bates. A good crime novel describes not only a place and its people but what makes them tick, what they fear, and what they desire. It’s very hard to pick just one crome novel from so many great ones, but Arnaldur Indridason’s Silence of the Grave won the British Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger in 2005 and also features the British occupation…

From Michael's list on to read if you want to understand Iceland.