This is the eighth and latest mystery in the series about an Icelandic homicide detective. However in this book Inspector Erlendur is offstage. He's taken a leave of absence to travel to the East Fjords, leaving his assistant, Elinborg, in charge. Elinborg suspects he is dealing with some old personal business; she hasn't inquired too closely because she knows Erlendur to be close-mouthed in the old Icelandic fashion about such things, and she respects that.
In his absence, Elinborg is handed a difficult and disturbing case, involving the murder of a man whom she quickly comes to suspect was a serial rapist who stalked single women, drugged them so they could neither resist nor remember their attacker, and then brutally raped them. With patience and persistence, Elinborg manages to develop evidence that confirms the murdered man's nasty proclivities; but tragically, it appears that he was killed by one of his victims. All that remains is to gain a confession from the suspect, and Elinborg will get all the credit for solving the case.
But in the course of her investigation, Elinborg visited the rapist's childhood home in an isolated rural village, and discovered an old unsolved case of a young girl who went missing from that village. She's convinced there's a connection. The villagers are sullen and uncooperative; they try to discourage Elinborg but that just makes her even more persistent. In the end she uncovers the truth and learns there are some wrongs that can never be righted. Indridason, like Stieg Larsson, Karin Fossum and others, writes in the popular thriller genre called Nordic Noir.
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