Ruth Morse on two new Ragnar Jonasson titles:
Somewhere between ‘No Good Deed Goes Unpunished’ and ‘Get a Better Editor’, Jonasson’s simple plots caught the eye of a television producer and are currently being speedily cranked into English. There are now four of these short Camilleri in Iceland novels with their batteries of stereotyped characters, not one of whom breaks through the clichés to create the impression of a memorable cop, journalist, medic (of any kind), but with remarkable puffery on the covers, in nine pages of praise before the title page, we learn that he is the NEW CHRISTIE (fourteen of whose books Jonasson has translated). More specifically, the puffs insist that this is the New Christie meets Nordic noir.
Well, no it isn’t. This is a series of farragoes in which the unimpressive Ari Thor Arason pulls rabbits out of hats without offering any of Christie’s clues along the way. Last year’s Black Out concerned a murder, volcanoes, relationship problems, a tiny police station in Iceland’s most northern city (protect, serve, advise), and—the best thing about the series—Isrun, a female journalist struggling against her misogynistic boss (but think ‘Annika Bengtzon’, Liza Marklund’s journo). In fact, these are books with much too much about the protagonist’s emotional life and low self esteem, and much too little thought about managing a number of separate plots.
Rupture, published this month, has three strands: a local man who comes to Ari Thor because of an old photo (this is where ‘advise’ comes in), and who wants to understand the story of his parents and his aunt and uncle, who moved, in the 1950s, to a no-longer-inhabited fjord to farm the land there, with desperate consequences for his aunt, dead of ratbane in her tea (was it an accident? Was it suicide?); a hit and run murder which involves local connections and reaches up towards national politicians; the kidnaping of an 18 month old child; and Isrun’s ability to follow a story by tapping her tame (but nameless) detective or speaking to people within the political establishment for news that could bring down the government. Recent reality in Iceland was much more entertaining, when the Prime Minister had to resign after offshore holdings were revealed. Several threads involve relationships on the verge of breakdown that are of little or no interest (except the one that means Ari Thor may soon be running his nick), and, cloyingly, Ari Thor’s progress in getting his girlfriend back. Characters regularly do behavioural flipflops which do not follow from their comportment in previous scenes.
So what, exactly, is wrong with these books and how have generous puffers hung their praise on Agatha? There is always a reason why this isolated northern town should be even more isolated: previously, we’ve had new tunnels to connect it to other towns both isolated and larger cities. Here, a French adventurer on his way back from Africa has landed in their little airfield and brought a terrible virus with him, which kills him and a nurse as well, so the town is quarantined. Stranger things have happened, including at Heathrow. But Jonasson doesn’t do anything with the quarantine, which contributes nothing. The plots are spread too thin, making them relatively hard to follow, including, in this one, an about-face when an apparently responsible man turns out to have a dark past for which not the slightest hint is given—which involves never-explained surveillance of the house he shares with his girlfriend.
There are too many locals, all willing to talk, and help the police. I found something satisfyingly selfish when, despite reminders, Ari Thor doesn’t go to see an elderly friend now dying in hospital of bad flu (nothing to do with the quarantine). She dies. Ari Thor feels guilty. Good. Ultimately, he’s a low, shifty, self-serving, and cowardly little man.
Ragnar Jonasson, Black Out, t. Quentin Bates, Orenda 16 [11], ISBN-13: 978-1910633465
Rupture, t. Quentin Bates, Orenda 17 [12], ISBN-13: 978-191063357
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