Book Review: Meltwater by Michael Ridpath - Icelandic murder with a contemporary political theme

I’ve written about Iceland in previous posts.  It’s a beautiful country, and with such a tiny population, you’d think it would be hard to sustain a series of books with storylines that go beyond the obvious.  The good news is that Michael Ridpath has done it well with his Fire and Ice series, of which Meltwater is the third book.

Freeflow is a group of activists that publish secret information, in this case, video footage of an Israeli military atrocity.  The group converge in Iceland, to release and publicise the footage and for recreation, the Freeflow members visit a volcano.  After splitting up to explore the scenery, one of the activists is brutally murdered.  As the investigation starts, the Freeflow group, led by Erika Zinn, fall into paranoia, believing that the lead detective Magnus Jonson is a CIA agent and because his colleague Vigdis is black she must work for the CIA too.  Frustrations build up as Freeflow struggle to prepare the footage for release and the Police try to progress the investigation slowly getting the activists to reveal more information to help solve the crime.  There are few clues, but it’s obvious that the murder at the volcano is only the first act.  The book also has an interesting backstory, revealing more information about the murder of Jonson’s father, which builds to a superb cliffhanger at the end of the novel.

Ridpath paints rich picture of Iceland and has created some good characters, particularly the detective team of Jonson, Vigdis and Arni.  Poor Arni is almost hapless at times, but thankfully, he can always be relied on to do the right thing (Cowabunga!).  The idea of Freeflow has a very up to date political feel about it and the characters are good too; almost mirror opposites of the Police team.  However, both groups have the same aim - searching out the truth and fighting against the obstacles thrown up by different institutions, authority figures and pure self-interest, which want to stop the truth being made public.  

Meltwater is a good book.  My only suggestion to anyone reading this review is to start with the first one in the series Where the shadows lie and work your way through to Meltwater.

Romancrimeblogger