Jar City: a Reykjavik Thriller / Arnaldur Indridason 274 p.

This series was heavily touted on NPR's To the Best of Our Knowledge, and I think the author was interviewed, too. I was excited to read it, but this first one was only so-so, I thought. In a very soggy basement apartment in a Reykjavik neighborhood which is apparently sinking back into marshland, something sinister (and a little smelly) has happened. Genetics feature into the detective work here, which is appropriate since the Icelandic population's genetic homogeneity make it home to a high-tech DNA database. Smart but dreary.