Infinite Books

A young man walks in the evening searching for poetic inspiration and stops on the bridge over the Pond in Reykjavik. He notices something unusual in the water: a doll, and he retrieves it. Then he sees a dead girl in the pond.

Twenty years later, a young woman is found dead, a syringe stuck in her arm: an accidental overdose, a suicide, or someone killed her?

It looks like these accidents are unrelated, but Konrad, a retired grumpy policeman, dutifully follows all the leads, and slowly a new picture emerges from his conversations with witnesses. These people often have been broken and disillusioned. Yet there is a need somewhere deep in their memories – or their hearts – to help explain the mysterious death of a young girl. Did she fall into the water? Or was a sinister murderer involved, an individual who didn’t stop at anything to protect his reputation? Konrad becomes increasingly involved in both cases, and, at the same time, he tries to fight his demons.

“The Girl by the Bridge” is a thriller in the Scandinavian noir tradition, written by a renowned Icelandic crime fiction writer, Arnaldur Indriðason. His novels have been translated into many languages, and millions of copies have been sold. I’m not a newbie to Scandinavian noir mysteries, but I was struck by this book’s particularly spare, dark style. At times, it was almost like reading a report or following a documentary or a movie script. However, there was always a melancholic mood below restrained, simple descriptions. The author purposefully avoids a judgmental or sympathetic tone, leaving the readers to experience the sad feeling permeating this Reykjavic mystery. Slowly, page by page, I was drawn deeper and deeper into the story, processing the layers of its plot.

It’s no accident that the book starts with a poet finding the dead girl. There is strange, sad poetry in this novel – and Konrad is the new poet, this time the one who solves the mystery and, in a way, saves the girl’s soul.

THE GIRL BY THE BRIDGE by Arnaldur  Indriðason, published by Minotaur Books, 2023