The Quiet Mother

Indridason’s excellent third procedural featuring Reykjavík policeman Konrád (after The Girl by the Bridge) sees the detective embark on a quest to reunite a woman with her long lost child. When a terminally ill woman named Valborg tries to enlist Konrád’s help to track down the son she gave up for adoption decades earlier, he refuses, as the request floods him with memories of his abusive father, who was murdered years earlier. A few days later, Valborg is killed, and her home is ransacked. Guilt-stricken, Konrád grows obsessed with locating her son, who’s now an adult. In the process, he unearths unsettling parallels between the murders of Valborg and his father, chases down promising leads from his psychic friend Eygló, and navigates his fraught professional relationship with his colleague Marta, who trains her efforts on figuring out who killed Valborg. Much of the book is prototypical Indridason—atmospheric, character-driven, and sleek—but everything kicks up a notch in a brutal finale that will sear itself into the minds of readers. This series continues to impress. (Dec.)