Oblivion
""...‘Oblivion’ is another hugely impressive addition to this great series." "
Synopsis:
THE QUICK: a woman swims in a remote, milky-blue lagoon. Steam rises from the water and as it clears, a body is revealed in the ghostly light.
THE DEAD: miles away, a vast aircraft hangar rises behind the perimeter of the US military base. A sickening thud is heard as a man's body falls from a high platform.
THE FORGOTTEN: many years before, a schoolgirl went missing. The world has forgotten her, but Erlendur has not.
THE SEARCHER: Erlendur Sviensson is a newly promoted detective with a battered body, a rogue CIS operative and America's troublesome presence in Iceland to contend with. In his spare time he investigates a cold case. He is only starting out but he is already up to his neck.
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Review:
Following on from 'Reykjavik Nights' and Indridason's return to Erlendur's early days on the force, 'Oblivion' (also known as Camp Knox) sees our protagonist recently promoted to detective and trying to solve the mystery of the body in the Blue Lagoon. Capturing once more his obsession with the lost, Erlendur is also searching for the truth behind what happened to Dagbjort, a young girl who disappeared on her way to school one morning, amid rumours of meeting a boy at the local slum, the ex-military base Camp Knox. The mystery of Dagbjort, is a sad tale as Erlendur uncovers the missing parts of her story, missing simply because the people who held the key believed themselves insignificant, and that their interactions were unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and so not worth telling anyone until they were asked. At the same time his latest case has strong links to the nearby American military base, which creates its own set of problems when it comes to investigating what happened to the man from the lagoon. Set in a time more innocent, but where the acceptance of the American military presence in Iceland was one of quiet intolerance, 'Oblivion' once more showcases Indridason's skills at storytelling and in making Iceland its own character within the story, this time one more fully fledged than in any Erlendur novel before it. 'Oblivion' also demonstrates one of the best things about the Reykjavik Series of books. Each contains a great sense of the ambiguity of real life, not just discreetly within the day to day, but also in the blindingly obvious, from the ending of 'Strange Shores' to the appearance of the mysterious Marion Briem in 'Oblivion'. Marion, whilst a character often mentioned in passing, and occasionally appearing, as an old colleague in the previous novels, Marion is a true enigma, as within the books there is deliberately no reference the his/her gender throughout any of the novels. Full of untold stories, betrayal, black market deals, and military conspiracies, 'Oblivion' is another hugely impressive addition to this great series.