January 2012 - Mystery Mavens selection is Frozen Assets by Quentin Bates. This book is set in Hvalvik, Iceland, a small fishing village about an hours drive from Reykjavik. Officer Gunnhildur (Gunna) Gisaladottir.
This book is slow to start and not very procedural in nature. It's loose organizational structure makes it harder to read. It has sometimes put me to sleep! You really have to get into it to read it, reading at least 50 pages in a sitting. (No so easy on my schedule!)
The plot does pick up around page 80 and readers will be come interested. Frozen Assets, as the cover implies, starts with a dead body (Einar Eyjolfur) floating in the harbor. Officer Gunna is called out to investigate. The author spends a lot of time setting up the characters in the first 50 pages and not enough time on the plot. Hence, s-l-o-w moving plot.
Then there is a blogger who keeps making comments on the political situation in Iceland. (Can you guess what spurred my idea for a blog???) Yes, the two plots eventually meet up, but not until half way through the book. The blogger, Skandalblogger, constantly comments on the political situation in Iceland and the affairs there of. He centers on the Environmental Minister, Bjarni Jon Bjarnason and his wife, Sigurjona Huldudottir, the head of Spearpoint, a consulting firm.
The Green movement is also highlighted in this novel. As we stumble through the beginning of this book, the Green movement stages a rally in Hvalvik regarding the slated builing of a power plant near the harbour by InterAlu. [Harbour -1 dead body --> Connection?]
Tensions continue to circle until the Arngrimur Orn Arnarson, the slightly shady computer programmer gets his arm broken by Harde (the really bad guy) and has a fatal heart attack shortly after. [Skandalblogger also stops blogging at this point in the story. So, the reader is lead to believe Arngrimur is Skandalblogger.] Furthermore, Gunna and her team find out one of the original leaders of the Green movement was killed in a hit and run.
At this point in the novel, Gunna comes into her own as investigator. She gets a team assigned to her to investigate the deaths. She ropes in Fat Matti Kristjan, her cousin, who was Hardy's [taxi] driver for questioning and finds where Hardy had been staying. Her reporter friend, Skuli, cuts her the biggest break when he gives her the pictures of Hardy from the dinner that Sigurjona attended with her team from Spearpoint and her sister Erna. These factors together bring the conclusion together.
It should also be noted that Bara, an associate of Gunna's, is also a strong female character. She unearths much of the research going into making the hard evidence stick. She has a small, but strong presence in the novel. I hope the author brings her back in the next installment of the series.
Gunna show how independent she had become when the pressure from above in her command chain as The Minister of Justice, Bjarni's friend, started to make calls to quiet things down. Gunna starts to unearth the "motive" for the killings in this case - InterAlu's power plan slated to be built in Hvalvik. Through her investigation, Gunna finds out Spearpoint's two subsidiaries, ESC and Bay Metals, are heavily invested in the potential InterAlu power plant.
Things start to go south in a hurry. The Icelandic banking crisis is mentioned. Government corruption etc. Badda-Bing-Badda-Boom: Time to end the book and wrap it up around P 330.
Would I recommend the book - No. I did read it and it made me think. I was crazy about the way the author brought the plot together. It was boring. With that said, I did read the entire book and write a mini-book report on it - so it wasn't that bad. I would rate the book 2.5/5 stars.
Frozen Assets - Quentin Bates - Discussion Points for Book Groups
1. Gunna Viewing Herself as Old -
Another area in this book that is worth mentioning is how Gunna views herself as old - she is in her mid 30s. She is not old. She has a good career and is up for promotion. Just because her husband has past away, she is characterizing her self as past her prime. [These references seem to subside as she comes into her own with the investigation.] Character development?
2. Icelandic Naming Conventions - P223
This is confusing to me... They attempt to clear it up in the book, but I think the Non-Icelander needs a table or something. Kids don't have the same last names as parents.
In a nutshell:
- Daughters take the fathers first name and follow it with -dottir
- Sons take the fathers first name and follow it with -son
3. Iceland's Small Population (295,000) Effect on the Story -
Gunna is related to one of the people with information on Harde- Fat Matti. What is it like where you could be related to a suspect. Gunna tries to relate, but does her job anyway. She gets the information to continue on in the investigation.
4. How does the impending climate of the bank failures impact the book as it takes place around 2008? Immense party, party life style of Sigurjona and her husband Bjarni Jon.
Other Mysteries Set in Iceland (Scandinavian Crime Fiction)
1. Arnaldur Indridason - Jar City/Erlendur Series - Excellent
2. Yrsa Sigardardottir - Last Rituals - Excellent
