Jar City by Arnaldur IndridasonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had to hunt a bit to find an I book for my A-Z of authors, but eventually I came across Arnaldur Indridason.
I'd read a few translated books before and always found some of the text a bit stilted, but this wasn't the case at all with Jar City. The story flowed well, dialogue was plausible and realistic and no word seemed out of place.
The actual story itself was brilliant, full of twists, turns and unexpected surprises. The story stretches back to the 60's and the past of the murder victim and the people he has affected throughout his life.
It's not always pleasant, but it's not 'gritty' which for me is a nice change. Murder mystery books can often be depressing and miserable, but this one did have a sense of humour, which again translated well into English.
I found this quite a quick read and once the story got going it was hard to put down. Each clue led to another, with the odd fiery confrontation and interesting characters.
The only problem I had was with the character names. I struggled to separate all of them at the beginning and lots of them have names starting with E. I suppose this wouldn't be a problem if it was a British or American book and I names that I recognised were used. However, once I got into it was easy to separate each of the characters, although I'm not sure I can spell or pronounce any of them!
Overall, an interesting murder mystery that's unputdownable and certainly the promise for more. I can't wait to read another!
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