The Killer's Guide to Iceland (Paperback)

The Killer's Guide to Iceland is an unusual book and it cannot be easily categorised. It's a travel guide but it's also a novel which belongs in few genres; mystery, thriller and as a character novel. And it works on all the planes.

Radcliffe has done his research, he gets almost all the Icelandic details down and all his Icelandic characters are very believable. All full of the Icelandic individuality. He might exaggerate in some cases like with the excessiveness of the traditional Icelandic dishes in Birna's and Sigríður's household. But it works. He also weaves in Icelandic history, myths and landscape and does that masterfully. He only has to take leave with one event (the Heimaey eruption that was supposed to have happen in the early '90s). I also had hard time buying the fact that Arnar had been a heroin junkie in the early '90s in the Vestmannaeyjar, seeing that heroin still is an extremely rare drug in Iceland. He could have written in any other drug (except perhaps crack) and it would have been more believable.

The sometimes incorrect use of Icelanic characters irritated me, and I'm sure this is more the editor's and the typesetter's fault. For instance, on the backcover, Birna is spelled Bírna and Sigríður is always spelled Sigridur in the book. Also Birna's father was always referred to as Svein when the correct version would have been Sveinn. In a book that relies so much on the Icelandic language to create its mood, it would have been more professional to get all the spelling correct.

I did like all the discussion of Icelandic issues in the book and I do think he nailed the willingness of Icelanders to discuss these things with foreigners quite well. I recognised this even with myself.

The mystery part of the novel was intriguing and had me second-guessing everything until all was revealed. That part actually had me long for this book to made into a film.

Overall, The Killer's Guide to Iceland is a great read, full of wonderful characters, well-plotted and probably one killer of a travel guide for Iceland.

Really well: The evocation of Iceland was superb. I have never been there, but half-way through the book I had to stop and search out pictures on the web.
Not very well: The plot was thin, and slow-moving.
Middling: The focus of the story was the relationship between callum and Birna. I think this story needed a beginning. When the book begins, Callum is moving to Iceland from Scotland to live with Birna, her mother and her daughter. We are not told how long they have known each other or how much time they have actually spent together; how much could it be, when they live in different countries? This lack of a defined starting point makes it difficult to evaluate the progress of events. Birna asks Callum to live elsewhere because her daughter doesn't want him around. Well, either the kid is a hopeless brat who should learn some basic manners, or the mother didn't give the whole plan much thought. Hmmm. . . really smart (supposedly) 30-ish woman invites man to live, not only with her, but with her mother and daughter after knowing him HOW long? There are more of these questionable bits, but enough of interest to keep me reading, which isn't easy these days.