House of Evidence
Readers craving the bleak atmosphere, strong sense of place, and spare delivery that often define fiction from the northern climes, such as that of Larsson and Mankell, are in for a treat with this angst-fueled Icelandic mystery. Jacob Kieler Jr. dies from a gunshot wound to the chest in the same room where his father was shot more than 30 years earlier. No killer and no weapon were found in the first death, and the same gun was used in both cases. Jóhann Pálsson and his team of variously troubled detectives learn that Jacob Sr. spent his entire life trying to build a railroad across Iceland, as he relates in his diaries, and his son’s life was focused on keeping the family home exactly as it was in his childhood. They make poor candidates for murder. As the investigation proceeds, clues are few and disparate, and there is an overall sense of approaching doom. Prepare for a zinger. --Jen Baker