Bill

There is little to recommend this book, other than the typically excellent narration of Bobby Cannavale and crew. If you've read or listened to the other books in this series, "Step On a Crack" or "Run For Your Life" this is the same ground over again. And I do mean the same ground. Take the "Teacher" or the "Neat Man" from these earlier works, give him just the slightest little twist and you get the "Francis X. Mooney," the villian of "Worst Case." Sure, maybe it's a little interesting to see how Mike Bennett and his kids are making out, but there is so little difference between this book and the first two that it hardly seems worth the effort. You get the feeling that Patterson and Ledwidge could turn this out in a day or two of non-stop typing. At least it's brief.

This was a really great listen. I had my doubts for the first five minutes or so, as the story begins and the setting is described. There were so many Icelandic place names, and each so long that it seemed that Mr. Guidall, who I think is a very fine narrator, was reading nothing else. I was intrigued, but felt that it was a distraction to hear them all on audio, that maybe it would be better to just read the book. Well, this distraction soon passed (or I got used to it), in any event, Indridason's tale soon has you completely in its thrall. The details of the case, the clues develop slowly, with Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson painstakingly interviewing an ever widening group of individuals, all the while denying that he is really conducting an official investigation at all. It's just him, out there on his own, asking quiet questions, and more quiet questions. You are inside his head, and it's a very interesting place to be. In some ways it reminded me just a bit of Columbo, in that you have a detective who seems to be a bit dense at times, perhaps, and certainly in dogged pursuit of the truth, in a way that those in his headlights seem exasperated by. Why won't Erlandur just go away? What is he after? You feel the discomfort of being under his microscope more and more as the story develops.
I thought it was great, and can't wait for Audible to purchase the rights to the rest of the series.