Menu
The Grímsson detective series
“Evil is at large, again,” – H. Grímsson
“Detective Grímsson is standing on the road leading from Suðurlandsvegur Road to Elliðavatn Lake and through the Heiðmörk Nature Reserve. To his right are the Rauðhólar pseudocraters, and to his left is a grass-grown lava field, with a wooded area in the distance. Grímsson is wearing his leather coat, his hair still wet after jumping into the shower following his fitness test. With a concentrated expression, he stares at the back of a white BMW 318i parked on the shoulder a hundred meters ahead of him. Around the car tiptoe white-clad members of the forensics team, armed with cameras, measuring tapes, and equipment for taking samples and fingerprints. The body is still in the driver’s seat.
The road has been closed at both ends of the scene. Police cars, lights flashing, are parked across it to block access. Beyond them, curious passersby are gathering, as well as photographers and other members of the media.
“Vultures,” mutters Grímsson. In his mind, he goes over the details of the case. Around nine o’clock, the National Emergency Number received a call from someone named Gunnar, who was on his way up to Heiðmörk to go jogging. He drove past the white BMW and looked through its windows, then called 112 and told the respondent that there was a dead man in a car at Rauðhólar. As it turned out, he was right. The car is covered with dew, indicating that it has been standing there at the roadside for several hours, at least since early this morning. The car is registered to eighteen-year-old Patrekur Jónsson, who still lives with his parents in the Fossvogur neighborhood. It must be considered likely that this body is him. Patrekur was a student at Hamrahlíð Junior College— HJC. He appears to have been shot in the face by a powerful firearm at short-range.
A brutal murder, to put it mildly.
Grímsson stands there looking, but without focusing on anything in particular. On the one hand, he’s waiting for the forensics team to complete its precision work, but on the other, and perhaps most importantly, he’s pondering and taking in the details of the scene, reading what he sees— and what he doesn’t see. He closes his eyes, pulls a notepad from his inner coat pocket and writes down a few thoughts.”
– From Deathbook.
About
Detective H. Grímsson is intimate with death. At the age of nineteen an avalanche hit his rural hometown of Sudavik in the remote Westfjords and killed his parents and younger siblings. Since then, he has faced death himself many times. To others he appears almost as a thing out of legend; 6´4 ft. tall and built as a wrestler, with a permanent scowl and wiry rust colored hair, wearing a long black leather coat that makes him less approachable than the Creature from the Black Lagoon. But he is a city detective, and a damn good one at that, much in part owing to what he calls his uncanny intuition. That‘s only half the truth of it – detective Grímsson is clairvoyant and frequently sees the grim shadow of death before it approaches. This intimacy of death has saved his skin in the past, but it is not a gift he bears lightly. When it comes to other people and his personal life, Grímsson can be as charming as a troll and as functional as a car with no steering wheel. But when it comes to solving a murder, he won‘t let go of it. Or rather, the morbid crime won‘t let go of him. H. Grímsson bears with him the aura of the late middle ages, as he battles ancient evil and the criminals of modern age.
The Grímsson Series books have been in the top spots on the Icelandic Best Seller list since day one. The series are getting more popular every year and detective Grímsson has a strong and ever growing fanbase of fanatic crime fiction readers, who cannot get enough of the pessimistic red haired giant.
If you are not yet acquainted with detective H. Grímsson, you are in for a treat.
Detective Grímsson on Spotify. A playlist with music from the Grímsson Series titles, plus songs that remind the author of detective Grímsson and/or are in his spirit: