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464 pages, Hardcover
First published November 15, 2014
“[M]y job as an engineer gives me a particular perspective on the human experience and the way I depict it. Engineers confront the world through technology, numbers, energy, strength, budgets, and progress; they engage in meetings, face the pressure of schedules and deadlines, and so on. Other writers with different training will have insight into layers of the community that I am less interested in. My Iceland is thus different from that of Arnaldur Indriðason’s; his viewpoint is that of a man, mine a woman’s if nothing else. I do not often address the lower levels of society and by that I mean the so-called underworld of criminals. My murderers are regular people—something that I find more challenging, motivating, and credible. The local underworld here is not capable of interesting murderers; when these occur they are always committed under the influence and are mainly pathetically sad.
Instead of drug-dealing and petty crimes, I prefer that the interaction between my characters leading up to ill deeds takes into account the closeness of people here. Where six degrees of separation applies to most of the world’s inhabitants, in Iceland it is probably only one degree of separation. Or zero. This provides a great tool for crime and thriller writing as my plots tend to revolve around the minor and major clashes between people. What better than to have everyone know, or know of, everyone else? How hard would you fight to keep your ugliest secrets secret under such circumstances?"