After wrapping up the internationally acclaimed Erlendur series, Arnaldur Indridason launched a new crime series starring a fresh protagonist. Enter Konrád, a retired detective who first appears in The Darkness Knows—just as determined and conscientious as his famously grumpy predecessor.
Wake up! There’s a case to solve!
Inspector Erlendur might just be one of the most unconventional leading men in the history of crime fiction. A miserably moody, monosyllabic, and pathologically aloof Icelandic cop, he’s such a crashing bore that readers of his cases might find themselves turning steadily grayer and more featureless with each page—possibly even slipping into a light coma…
Well, Konrád from The Darkness Knows is only about a gram more exciting than him. I don’t know if most Icelanders are like this, or just the ones in Arnaldur Indridason’s social circle, but honestly—if Inspector Konrád ever invited you over, within twenty minutes you’d find yourself thinking that even methodically slitting your own wrists might be a more engaging way to pass the time than trying to hold a conversation with him…
The Erlendur series has 11 volumes. Nine of them have been published in Hungarian. Strangely enough, I’ve read them all. And no, no one held a gun to my head.
The reason, of course, is that Indridason more than makes up for his utterly unbearable protagonist with the actual investigative process. Just like he does with his new lead character…
Old Detective? Still a Detective
Over the years, I’ve sampled quite a few Scandinavian crime series. At least half of them start with a detective nearing retirement who, wouldn’t you know it, is just about to crack his final case. Honestly, the only thing that’s stopped me from bursting out laughing every time is basic politeness.
Seriously, why not just start with a 101-year-old cop, you genius?
The best crime series of all time—Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books—began with a protagonist who was around 40 in the very first story, The Black Echo. And guess what? Connelly had to swap him out recently, because he got too old… Planning for the long run? Anyone? … Good old Konrád was born in 1944, so yeah, I’ll let you do the math. I certainly won’t bother.
Arnaldur Indridason: A One-Trick Pony
Darkness. Depression. Oppressive past. A cop crushed by guilt, unable to let go. Who cannot rest until the case is solved.
This formula worked in the Erlendur series. (Erlendur, of course, was so miserably wretched you couldn’t help but pity him.)
But it didn’t work so well in the prequels about young Erlendur’s early investigations. There, the whole thing just turned to mush. (See: Reykjavik Nights.)
Now Indridason is doing the same old trick with the retired Konrád.
A failed investigation into a man who disappeared thirty years ago naturally offers plenty of opportunities for self-torment. Global warming, on the other hand—well, every now and then, it does come with unexpected perks…
The Darkness Knows? Time to find out!
If you buried a corpse deep in an Icelandic glacier thirty years ago, a few decades later you might be in for an unpleasant surprise. Climate change melts the ice, and poof!—the body resurfaces.
Konrád, who led the original investigation back in the day and then retired under somewhat controversial circumstances (which involved a rather large wrench), still sees this case as the greatest failure of his career…
Honestly, I thought I’d just flip through Indridason’s new series. Just enough to tell myself I wasn’t missing out on anything. Then I’d put it down. After all, I’m sick and tired of the damned gloomy North—I want entertainment, dammit!
But The Darkness Knows grabs you fast… There’s a classic unsolved mystery. A suspect who denies everything tooth and nail. Konrád doesn’t have the faintest clue what to believe. The uncertainty only grows with a new piece of information that approaches the case from a completely different angle. Only catch? The witness has been dead for seven years. The police are skeptical. Konrád is bored. (Seriously, I have no idea why he hasn’t joined a library by now.)
The old case and the new revelations twist and turn in all directions. And their intersection points keep nudging Konrád forward. Not meddling colleagues, not time, not even his own personal tragedy can slow the retired private detective down.
Right, mystery solved. Goodbye now!
The investigation in The Darkness Knows moves like a glacier—slow, mysterious, yet unstoppable. Right up until the very end. Well, almost. Until the mystery finally begins to take shape. And that’s when it hits you: Indridason’s stories are driven, above all else, by secrets. Without them, well… the whole thing shines a lot less brightly. Once the mystery vanishes, what’s left? A bunch of uninteresting Icelandic characters—and the sinking realization that if you ever had to emigrate somewhere, Iceland would be dead last on your list.
So it’s not just the Icelandic cops who constantly feel like crap—turns out poor Icelandic murderers are a miserable bunch too?… Incredible, right?! You killed someone? Okay, it happened, process it! Then move on already! Thirty years should be enough for that, shouldn’t it? And for heaven’s sake, stop whining—no one’s going to feel sorry for you…
And if you happened to like Erlendur—the basically unlikable Icelandic detective who always seemed to walk life’s darker paths—you’ll get along just fine with Arnaldur Indridason’s new protagonist, the good old Konrád. He doesn’t get much more sunlight either. But when it comes to detective work, he’s just as sharp as his determined and morose predecessor.
Rating: 7.8/10
The Darkness Knows (Konráð #1) by Arnaldur Indriðason
352 pages, Hardcover
Published in 2021 by Minotaur Books
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