What is it that makes Icelandic crime fiction so captivating? It was the Magical Murder Tour that wrapped up Iceland Noir yesterday which provided many of the clues. Organised by Iceland Noir and All Iceland, the journey lasted from sunrise to sunset and explored the great lava fields between Reykjavik and the south-west tip of the Reykjanes Peninsula. It is the area around Keflavik International Airport, often overlooked by Icelanders and visitors alike, but full of both history and folklore. Each stop on the tour focused on a scene from a crime book set in the area.
Settled in the ninth century, most of Iceland’s history tells of toil and struggle. Unless you are interested in ice, rock formations, fish and other-worldly landscapes, the country has never been a land of plenty. But its history, folklore and literature are plenty based on the land and its stories. After the settlement, Iceland was split into 400-odd portions of land by the country’s first leader, Ingólfur Arnarson. He gave a patch to his each of his followers, who divided it up between their own henchmen (and, occasionally, women). Every bit of arable land, every farmstead, was greatly valued. Stories associated with these places were remembered, retold and eventually written down.
On another stretch of road, your guide may well know a story about a particular ghost, giant, troll or group of huldufólk – the hidden people, or elves, that Iceland is famous for. It’s because Iceland’s writers research and ingrain themselves with such stories that the country’s brand of crime writing is so popular with local readers. As a non-Icelandic reader, you may not know the stories like an Icelander, but because the writing is so deeply rooted in real places and real stories, it is so very convincing. Of course, the mysteries written by Arnaldur Indridason, Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Ragnar Jonasson are usually fictional but, because they are applied to much older tales, Iceland’s crime writing seems a little like the layer of greenish-grey moss that grows on the lava in Reykjanes. It’s like the sweet icing on a rich chocolate cake.
The first stop on the Magical Murder Tour was at the inlet labelled Flekkuvik on the map above, in the region called Vatnsleysuströnd.
This book is from a new series from Ragnar Jonasson, but you can catch up with his Dark Iceland books here.
Above you can see the farmhouse – complete with eco graffiti – near the inlet where the body is discovered. The setting is useful for the author and his story because it is both remote and yet near Keflavik airport. Later, the tale moves to a confined setting in Iceland’s highlands, with Hulda confronting not just the mystery itself but problems of her own.
You can read more about Arnaldur Indridasson’s series featuring Detective Erlendur here.
If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know that some of its most dramatic scenes take place in the graveyard at the church near Sandgerði. We won’t spoil it for you other than to say that an exhumation takes place here, it’s all a bit fraught, and the weather is much worse in the film than in this picture. Get someone to throw lots of small bits of ice at you while you look at the photo and you’ll get the idea.
When the Magical Murder Tour stopped for lunch, this too was inspired by Jar City. Thankfully, it didn’t involve human tissue specimens from the genetic research institute in the story. But there’s a scene in the story when Erlendur, upset by the state of his drug-abusing daughter, tries to look after her by giving her some lamb soup. The dish is one of Iceland’s famous staples. Found in Salthúsið, the bowl above was as good as any.
The Blue Lagoon – with its supposed healing waters – was not a stop on the tour but it is fed by the hot water used in Iceland’s geothermal energy programme. The pool is where the first body is found in Arnaldur Indridason’s most recent Erlendur novel, Oblivion. In Icelandic it was entitled Kamp Knox. The tour criss-crossed the area where the book is set, including a stop in Keflavik and a drive across the land which was a NATO base until 2006. It’s the young Erlendur’s attempts to gain access to the base to investigate the murder that’s the core of the tension in Oblivion and you can read our review here.
The final, stunning stop on 
Last year, author Yrsa Siggurdardottir led a journey to the glacier Snaefellsnes, and you can read about that here.
