Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Reykjavik Nights
    Reykjavik Nights
    Reykjavik Nights
    Audiobook7 hours

    Reykjavik Nights

    Written by Arnaldur Indridason

    Narrated by George Guidall

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    The loner Erlendur has recently joined the police force as a young officer. The beat on the streets in ReykjavIk is busy: traffic accidents, theft, domestic violence, contraband... And an unexplained death. When a tramp he met regularly on the night shift is found drowned in a ditch no one seems to care. But his fate haunts Erlendur and drags him inexorably into the strange and dark underworld of the city. - Features the young Erlendur: ReykjavIk Nights is a prequel to the long-running, acclaimed series that recently concluded with Strange Shores.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 21, 2015
    ISBN9781490680965
    Reykjavik Nights
    Author

    Arnaldur Indridason

    ARNALDUR INDRIÐASON won the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Silence of the Grave and is the only author to win the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel two years in a row, for Jar City and Silence of the Grave. Strange Shores was nominated for the 2014 CWA Gold Dagger Award.

    More audiobooks from Arnaldur Indridason

    Related to Reykjavik Nights

    Titles in the series (11)

    View More
    View More

    Related audiobooks

    Crime Thriller For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Good News Week

      Jan 24, 2024

      Good News Week
      6 min read

    • Article

      Torpedo On The Hook

      Dec 27, 2019

      Torpedo On The Hook
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Beckoning Arctic

      Apr 2, 2020

      The Beckoning Arctic
      8 min read

    • Article

      Rescue Stories

      Aug 10, 2021

      I hope you enjoy this issue of Soundings, which has a lot of great content for those who appreciate yarns about salty boats and the people who care for them. However, there’s only so much editorial we can squeeze into each issue. We’re limited by pag

      2 min read

    • Article

      More Things In Heaven

      Dec 10, 2021

      It’s the deep mid-winter, when sailors check their warps, settle down in lamp-lit saloons, top up their bogey stoves and pour themselves a dram. If they’re in tune with the outside world, they’ll also shut off the flickering screens, kill the music m

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Stories Of Us

      Nov 24, 2023

      The Stories Of Us
      7 min read

    • Article

      Passion And The Gray Man

      Oct 1, 2019

      Passion And The Gray Man
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Wreck Of The Meridian

      Dec 15, 2021

      On 4 June 1853, the Meridian left Gravesend, England, bound for Melbourne, with a 23-man crew and 84 passengers, almost half of whom were children. The first few weeks at sea were uneventful and mainly enjoyable for the passengers, although Alfred Lu

      4 min read

    • Article

      River of Time

      Nov 2, 2023

      The sad death of one of the most famous American UFO abductees, Calvin Parker, was announced on 24 August (see obit, p.28 and FT119:38, 122:52, 382:30). He and fellow fisherman Charles Hickson had their encounter on the Pascagoula River in Mississipp

      4 min read

    • Article

      Holding Power

      Sep 11, 2020

      Holding Power
      5 min read

    • Article

      Giving It A Go

      Feb 12, 2023

      Giving It A Go
      2 min read

    • Article

      THE DOS & DON’TS OF Helping migrants at sea

      Jul 22, 2021

      Just before midnight, Tim Herbert-Smith was roused from his bunk. He was helping deliver Seren, an Ovni 395, from Leros in the eastern Mediterranean to Milford Haven. Earlier that day they had left Almeria heading for the Straits of Gibraltar. The sk

      8 min read

    • Article

      White Silence

      Dec 22, 2020

      White Silence
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Warning To The Fortean

      Jul 14, 2022

      A Warning To The Fortean
      9 min read

    • Article

      Backseat Steelhead

      Jun 3, 2021

      Backseat Steelhead
      5 min read

    • Article

      Sinking And Salvage

      Jun 10, 2023

      Sinking And Salvage
      14 min read

    • Article

      Yarning About Sea Monsters

      Jul 6, 2023

      Marsali Taylor sails an Offshore 8M, Karima S. She’s a dinghy instructor and author of The Shetland Sailing Mysteries starring liveaboard sleuth, Cass Lynch. Sea stories, I mean. There’s nothing like a lamp-lit cabin after a long day’s sail to a new

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Song Of Summer

      Mar 19, 2019

      The Song Of Summer
      5 min read

    • Article

      Of Whales And Men

      May 29, 2022

      Of Whales And Men
      6 min read

    • Article

      Spirit Of The North

      Mar 9, 2020

      Spirit Of The North
      10 min read

    • Article

      Frank and Margaret Dye

      Jul 6, 2023

      Frank and Margaret Dye
      7 min read

    • Article

      What’s In The Water

      May 10, 2019

      What’s In The Water
      7 min read

    • Article

      Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Rainy Isles

      Aug 30, 2023

      I FIND social media pretty obnoxious at the best of times, but it’s at its worst during high summer. According to Instagram, every friend I’ve got is getting fat and drunk by a swimming pool somewhere beneath the Mediterranean sun. In a sense, I’m pr

      2 min read

    • Article

      On Thin Ice

      Feb 22, 2021

      On Thin Ice
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Life Well Sailed

      Sep 10, 2020

      A Life Well Sailed
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Reykjavik Nights

    3.5/5

    202 ratings18 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      This is the story of a beat cop working nights. He gets to know the “tramps” of the city and is puzzled when one turns up dead. In his free time, he starts to look into the apparent accidental death that did not get much attention from the police. The more people he speaks to, the more apparent that it was not an accident.

      Although the story was well written and the plot was well developed, I found it too slow moving and got bored mid way through.
    • 4/5
      New to this author, thoroughly enjoyed the read. Description of Icelandic life an added bonus.
    • 5/5
      An excellent book, built on empathy for lost souls. A mystery with a sort of spiritual search.
    • 3/5
      Nothing particularly original about this whodunnit, but it's a fairly absorbing, well written story, with a sympathetic protagonist.
    • 3/5
      Vrij wijdlopig verhaal (doet ie altijd) maar wel heel mooi. Over een politieman die zelf op zoek gaat naar wat er met een zwerver is gebeurd die hij kende.
    • 4/5
      This prequel to the Inspector Erlendur series was a great read; however, I must admit it made me less inclined to plan a vacation in Iceland. The young Erlendur takes an interest in cold cases, which he pursues while on night duty as a traffic/incident officer. He delves into the lives of the homeless and persons who simply vanished. One item in the book that struck me was when he picked up an old newspaper and "...was immersed in a translated Swedish serial called The Laughing Policeman..." -- a nice reference to what later became one of several detective novels written by the noted Swedish authors Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. The atmosphere of Reykjavik Nights is reminiscent of the classic Martin Beck detective series. If you are into Nordic noir, I highly recommend both the Erlendur and Beck series, perhaps starting with this prequel.
    • 3/5
      Arnaldur Indridason’s Reykjavik Nights (published in the US in 2015) is billed as a prequel to the author’s popular Inspector Erlendur series. As such, it offers fans of the series a fascinating look at a very young Erlendur just as he begins his career as a member of the Reykjavik police department. Although young Erlendur’s responsibilities are mostly those of a traffic cop as he works the night shift with his two partners, his curiosity about what happens on his city’s streets is already transforming him into the dogged investigator he will one day be. Erlendur is not the kind of man who can turn his back on those whose bad habits have condemned them to a precarious life on Reykjavik’s cold streets. Despite the resistance of many of those he tries to help, the young traffic division cop always tries to leave them in better shape the he finds them. Erlendur sees the homeless as individuals, not simply as a long series of drunkards or mentally ill people to be dealt with on his shift and then quickly forgotten. He remembers their faces and their names and tries to connect with them in as positive a way as the situation allows him. A man named Hannibal is one of the hopelessly addicted alcoholics whom Erlendur has dealt with more than once, even to letting the man shelter in a jail cell one particularly cold night when there was room to spare in the jail (something he has been known to do for others in similar circumstances and conditions). Something about Hannibal intrigues Erlendur, something about his personality that hints how seriously the man has been damaged by something in his past. Erlendur wonders if it is too late to save the man from himself.But that will never be, because three boys paddling their makeshift boat down one of the city’s tiny waterways soon discover Hannibal’s drowned body floating there. For Erlendur, the worst thing about Hannibal’s sad end is that no one seems to care. The police are quick to write his dearth off as an accidental drowning; the man’s street friends are not concerned with the details of his death; and the world will soon forget that Hannibal ever existed. Erlendur, however is not so ready to forget Hannibal and starts asking questions, lots of them, during his off-duty hours – questions that lead to an entirely off-the-books investigation that will find Erlendur risking his own future by keeping what he learns from his superiors in the department, including the very investigators who would most profit from learning what Erlendur discovers.Reykjavik Nights will be particularly enjoyable for readers already familiar with the Inspector Erlendur character because the author has clearly built the young traffic cop from elements of the man readers know the mature Inspector now to be. It is all there:•Erlendur is not a man who enjoys drinking•Staying in alone to read, listen to the radio, or play his jazz records is much to Erlendur’s taste.•He prefers to eat plain, traditional food and saves even roast lamb for special occasions.•He is intrigued by books about people who have gone missing but have beaten incredible odds to find safety once again – and her reads them over and over again.•Not nocturnal by nature, he has nevertheless come to enjoy the relative silence and isolation of Reykjavik at night.•And, most importantly of all, Erlendur himself is a man severely damaged by the disappearance of his childhood brother during a blizzard whiteout.Reykjavik Nights is far from a perfect crime novel. It is, in fact, a rather plodding one that despite is relatively short 295 pages seems to take forever to reach its conclusion. Still, this is definitely one that Inspector Erlendur fans need to read if they are to completely know and understand the character.
    • 4/5
      Very reminiscent of books about an detective in Sweden. A good read. Sometimes I got tripped up on the names--of people, places--but the story line was a good one.
    • 3/5
      ANOTHER ICELANDIC MYSTERY, BUT NOT AS WELL WRITTEN AS JONASSON'S SNOWBLIND. WHEN COMPARING THE TWO SNOWBLIND WAS MUCH MORE READABLE AND CHARACTERS WERE MORE FLESHED OUT.
    • 3/5
      Enjoyable but the mystery part was slightly predictable. It was interesting to find out how Erlunder and Hallidor first got together though!
    • 4/5
      After a trip to Iceland, I wanted to read a few of their authors, and what genre better than a mystery? This book is a prequel to the Inspector Erlendur series, in which our main character is still a traffic officer working nights, but an old case about the drowning of a homeless man nags at him until he has to try and uncover whether the death was purely accidental or if he had been murdered (for some unknown reason). A bit slow-going, and some of the translation is a bit funky, but enjoyed it enough to go back and start with the first book in the series and go from there. Sadly, no mention of Icelandic butter in this book, but waffles were mentioned several times!
    • 4/5
      For those who have read the Erlunder series (starting with Jar City in English translation), this is an excellent prequel. However it was written after the Erlunder series and I would suggest is best read if you enjoyed them and want more, rather than before the original series.As well as the descriptions of Reykjavik, I also enjoyed the convincing 1970's setting (to me anyway) and, as well as the main mystery, for showing Erlendur as a traffic cop, having to deal with drunks, thieves and accidents.
    • 4/5
      his is a prequel to the Erlunder series, which has remained one of my favorite Nordic series. Was wonderful seeing the young Erlunder in the role of a traffic cop but how he still managed to put together things that had escaped others. The bones of the later Erlunder already in place. Not able to let go of something until it is solved to his satisfaction. This plot revolved around a missing woman and a group of street people. Loved to see the compassion he had for these people, unable to stop drinking and so down on their luck. Loved the character of Hannibal and glad we got to see his back story, one that is tragic and brought him to the street. A very good series with a remarkable character.
    • 4/5
      “His thoughts shifted to the Reykjavik nights, so strangely sunny and bright, yet in another sense so dark and desperate.”When the drowned body of a homeless man is found by three boys, no one seems to care. After all, derelicts are found dead all the time and chances are he just passed out drunk and unfortunately landed in water. But Erlander, a young policeman working the night shift in Reykjavik, was one of the first on the scene and he knew the man, Hannibal slightly, and part of him sympathized with him, even, on some level, respected him. Erlander was less convinced that Hannibal’s death was an accident. He had heard Hannibal claim that someone had tried to set the cellar he lived in on fire but his landlord believed he was responsible and had evicted him. One of the reasons Hannibal’s death got such little interest from the police was the disappearance of a woman on her way home from a night out with her friends on the same night. It is assumed that she left on her own volition and that it is probably a suicide. Erlander has a personal fascination with missing people and he has read everything about this disappearance. It has been a year since these incidents and Erlander is still dissatisfied with the official verdicts. Although, he isn’t assigned to either case, he finds himself investigating both in his spare time. Soon, he becomes convinced that neither of these deaths was as simple as everyone else thinks and he sets out to prove it. Reykjavik Nights by Icelandic author Arnaldur Indrioason and translated by Victoria Cribb is not nearly as dark as most Nordic crime fiction I have read. Unlike much Nordic noir, it focuses less on the darker angels of man’s nature and more ‘but for the grace of God’. There is little violence and much of the story is taken up by Erlander’s investigation and his thoughts on the two victims. Despite this, it is a very enjoyable and engrossing read and much of this is down to the character of Erlander whose sense of compassion towards Hannibal and the other homeless he interviews as well as his concern for the many damaged people he meets on the job kept me enthralled throughout. Don’t get me wrong – I am not suggesting Erlander is the only reason to read this book. There are plenty of other really good reasons like it’s well-written and well-plotted with the kind of clean precise language that keeps the pace moving and the reader engaged. It’s just that I’m a sucker for sympathetic characters. The story is set in 1974 and is a prequel to the Erlander series by Indriosan. I was unaware of this fact before I began the book but it reads very well as a standalone. However, I will definitely be rectifying my oversight as quickly as possible and am already looking forward to reading the other books in the series.
    • 4/5
      Essentially a prequel to the eleven book series from bestselling author Arnaldur Indriðason, Reykjavik Nights features detective, Inspector Erlendur as a rookie officer on the streets of the Iceland’s capital.It is the mid 1970’s and Erlendur is a new beat officer, patrolling the darkened streets of Reykjavik. He responds to traffic accidents, drunken brawls, thefts and domestic violence incidents but it is the fate of the missing that intrigues him, reminding him of lost brother.“This fixation of his with disappearances – with the phenomenon itself, the fates of those who were never heard of again and the sufferings of those left behind to mourn. He knew his obsession had its roots in the tragedy he himself had endured on the moors out east, and that it had been intensified by all the books he had read on disappearances or terrible ordeals in this harsh land.”The novel begins with three young boys discovering the body of an alcoholic vagrant known as Hannibal, who death is quickly dismissed as drowning via misadventure. A year later the case continues to haunt Erlendur in part because he had struck up an acquaintance with the tramp but his interest is rekindled when he discovers a tenuous link between Hannibal’s murder and the disappearance of a local woman around the same time. The plot meanders a little as Erlendur, on his own time and with few resources, follows his hunch, but I enjoyed moving through the streets with him as he worked to develop connections and answer the questions he is unable to let go of while also going about his usual police duties.” As he thought about Hannibal he reflected that people could just as easily lose themselves on Reykjavik’s busy street as on remote mountain paths in winter storms.”Indriðason paints a vivid portrait of Reykjavik and its culture during the 1970’s, a city yet to experience the economic boom that revitalised the capital, and began to attract tourists. Erlendur spends a lot of time walking around the Reykjavik streets, and those familiar with the capital should be able to trace his path.“His thoughts shifted to the Reykjavik nights, so strangely sunny and bright, yet in another sense so dark and desperate. Night after night he and his fellow officers patrolled the city in the lumbering police van, witnessing human dramas that were hidden from others. Some the night provoked and seduced; others it wounded and terrified.”For readers unfamiliar with the Inspector Erlendur series, Reykjavik Nights is a great place to start, while fans should enjoy learning more about the hero they have grown to know and love. I enjoyed the novel and I’m interested in reading more.
    • 4/5
      Excellent prequel for fans of the series, like me. There's something hypnotic about the writing here, but this was an unexpected treat, in being not as heavy as some of the final Erlendur works. It seems almost as if the series' temporal conclusion freed Indridason, so that he enjoyed writing this one more.
    • 5/5
      The year is 1974 in this Inspector Erlendur series prequel. Erlendur is a new traffic cop on the night shift driving around with two partners. Called to a domestic dispute, Erlendur is reminded of a homeless alcoholic named Hannibal who drowned in a nearby pond the previous year. It was thought he was drunk and accidentally drowned. Erlendur is intrigued by unsolved cases, especially disappearances. Having met Hannibal several times on his beat, on his own time Erlandur begins looking at the police files regarding the drowning and searching for clues. As he talks to more and more people, relatives and fellow street people, he gains some knowledge of Hannibal and his life.Erlendur also remembers that a young woman disappeared at the same time as Hannibal’s drowning and has not been heard from since. She apparently was out drinking with some friends, left the bar and never made it home. Erlendur begins investigating this disappearance as well, talking to her friends and her husband.Reykjavik Nights is not as riveting as previous Erlendur books, nor is it as dark. However, young Erlendur is still a solid character, socially awkward, a loner, driven even then. He’s more of a Columbo-like character, always coming back with another set of questions. Readers gain some insight into Erlendur’s character and his entrée into criminal investigation. They get a smidgen of a taste as to why he is obsessed with disappearances. His police partners play minimal, more comical roles in this foray. There is a hint of romance, as well.At the end, Erlendur meets his future CID mentor, Marion Briem, who plays key roles in his investigations. Erlendur fans as well as readers of Icelandic mysteries and police procedurals will devour the entire series. You can begin with this book or the initial first book in the series, Jar City. It doesn’t matter. You’ll soon become a fan. I read somewhere that Indridason wants to write a series of prequels and I, for one, wouldn’t mind learning about those intervening years, from young cop to seasoned veteran.
    • 4/5
      Reykjavík Nights differs from the other titles in the series featuring Erlendur in that it takes you back to when Erlendur was a young policeman on the beat and when he first showed an ability for crime solving. So it is very different and you have to try and forget everything you know and think about him to large measure as it isn't really relevant to the young Erlendur.Erlendur works the night shift with two colleagues patrolling the streets of Reykjavík, and in so doing he meets and interacts quite closely with many of those who live rough on the streets and whose lives are hard and marked by drink, violence and poverty. The death of one man living rough, whom Erlendur knew, from an apparent drowning and the disappearance of a woman the same night show no clear signs of being related until Erlendur starts to inquire into the man's life and death. In the course of his private investigation unknown to his colleagues, he interacts with several characters living rough and others of questionable character, and it is this aspect of the book which holds most interest, the insight into the lives of those unfortunates proving interesting and revealing. In fact the scenes are probably reflective of the lives of many such unfortunates in any European city. They don't welcome his interest and interference as they would see it, and are suspicious of his motives and guarded of their lives and circumstances. So his investigation, while well intended, meets most resistance from those whom he seeks to help. True to form, Erlendur does make progress with his investigation and in true style his doggedness, his humanity and his eventual success serve to show why he went on the become the successful detective we are so familiar with in the other books he features in and set later in his life. While his own personal tragedy, namely the disappearance of his brother when he was a young boy, does not really feature in the story, its influence on him is evident in his desire to discover what has happened to the woman who has disappeared. While not quite on a par with his best, Indridason has nonetheless delivered here a book worth reading and certain not to disappoint.