Cankles and Recent read #8: Jar City

I must be allergic to mosquitoes.  This weekend I walked outside of an Anthropologie for two minutes and my ankles were mauled by them.  Today I have fat red ankles and the bites hurt!  I wrapped an ice pack around them and my co-workers had a good laugh until they saw my cankles and then laughed some more.

Anyway, this is going to be a terrible segue into my most recent read.



Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason

As you'll soon discover through some of my recent reads, I quite enjoy mysteries of any kind and was convinced that I'd like this one, particularly due to the endorsement by NPR.  It's an Icelandic murder mystery set in cold, grey Reykjavik with a promising main character in Detective Erlendur - a gritty hardworn man with the typical health and family dysfunctions associated with detective heroes.  The mystery starts with the death of an old man that could have easily ended up a cold case if not for Erlendur's relentless probing and willingness to chase what seem like dead end leads.  The dead man ends up being a serial rapist and the list of suspects begin to grow as more victims are uncovered.  The novel picks up in the middle with a scientific twist of a genetic disease that throws a wrench into the story.  However, I didn't feel as though it was enough of a pick up to take the book to a satisfactory conclusion.  This is the first of the Reykjavik thrillers but I don't think its caught me enough to pick up the series.  Have you read any good mysteries lately?

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