By Liz Soares
In 1983, a nurse named Yrsa is murdered in a remote community in Iceland. She worked at a former tuberculosis sanatorium, now a general hospital. Detectives Hulda and Sverrir are sent up from Reykjavik to investigate. The hospital’s caretaker, Broddi, is arrested but released after the medical director, Fridjon, commits suicide. Surely he was the one responsible for Yrsa’s death.
Helgi, who’s writing a criminology dissertation in 2012, is not so sure. He wants to find out what really happened at the old sanatorium and sets out to interview all those who were involved and survive. This includes the nurses Trinna and Elisabet, the doctor Thorri, and Broddi himself. Sverrir and Trinna ended up marrying and having a child, but no one seems very happy. Everyone seems to have something to hide.
Helgi loves classic mystery fiction, and the investigative techniques of Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh inform both his queries and the narrative. His life is complicated as well. Helgi is involved in an abusive relationship. He’s also been offered a job with the police department—he’d be taking Hulda’s place. Should he accept it? It would mean giving up his dreams of working abroad, but his girlfriend wants to stay in Iceland, buy a house and start a family.
I was rooting for the earnest, idealistic Helgi but wondered if I knew everything about him. Was he an unreliable narrator?
The story unfolds in alternating viewpoints, including Helgi’s. The final answer lies far back in the hospital’s tragic history, and the novel ends with a shocking twist.
Death at the Sanatorium was a satisfying, absorbing read; the plot is a slow, steady burn, making it a fine example of “Scandinavian noir.”
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