Jar City Audiobook By Arnaldur Indridason cover art

Jar City

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Jar City

By: Arnaldur Indridason
Narrated by: George Guidall
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About this listen

Gold Dagger Award winner Arnaldur Indridason’s novels featuring Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson became international sensations on their way to selling millions of copies worldwide. The debut of morose detective Sveinsson finds the inspector and his team delving into the murder of a retiree with horrifying secrets.

©2000, 2004 Arnaldur Indridason (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC
Fiction International Mystery & Crime Mystery Noir Police Procedural Suspense
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Critic reviews

"[A] model puzzle presented with clarity and crisp economy.” ( Kirkus)

What listeners say about Jar City

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  • Overall
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Jar City

A very interesting story well told and narrated! I did have some trouble keeping track of which character was which as the names are very unusual to my American ear. But, I really enjoyed this never the less.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good book

I purchased a few books written by foriengn authors based on Audible recommendation. This is my first one written that had to be translated into English. It was good but I had trouble with the names, too many of them sound like each other. The mystery was great and characters well developed.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Sound Mystery with good characters

I almost stopped this book at the beginning as it starts harshly. I'm glad I kept going as the issue resolved itself. The plot is interesting and sufficiently tangled to hold interest but not so tangled as to be difficult to follow. I like the personality of police detective, Erlendur Sveinsson.

There are details of Icelandic life and character that make the story come alive. I will listen to more books by this author.

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21 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Different, but good

It took me a while to get use to the names and who everyone was, but once I did, I really got into it. I liked how it jumped right into the story, and it was quite an intriguing mystery. I would have liked a bit more character development, other than Erlendur and his daughter, and even Erlendur did not have the same type of strong presence as other detectives, such as Harry Hole or Carl Morck. But maybe that is expected with the first in the series. I thought the narrator did an excellent job, especially with all of the interesting names.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good story with good characters

As some reviews have already stated - this is a good mystery with a large portion of the time spent inside the head of the lead detective with his demons and choices. It is hard to tell which is the driver - character development or the story.

Having read a couple in this series, true to form. Good mystery procedural but not high octane.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Meh

Quite a middling book. A really awful character is found murdered. The police work is plodding and not really believable--ignoring most likely explanation for crime based on a hunch then going to extraordinary lengths to investigate the hunch. Nesbo has nothing to worry about.

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14 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Narrator Great, Story Not so Much

I chose this because I like mystery series, especially in settings I know nothing about, and I love the narrator. Despite being an interesting mystery, this was a bleak story and a little slow-paced. I found it hard to connect with the characters despite the narrator's best efforts. Not bad, but not the new, enthralling mystery series I was hoping to sink my teeth into.

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Interesting plotting and an excellent read

What did you love best about Jar City?

Erlender is not just another cop following his own instincts, he's a man with warts and with character. Part of the mystery in Jar City was in trying to figure out (or guess at) how all these seemingly disparate threads would tie up at the end - but they did.
The glimpse into the world that is Iceland is also incredibly interesting; the population is under 335,000 - the size of a small city in most of the world - which makes for intriguing policing possibilities. Looking forward to a great series.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Nicely paced murder mystery

Good story and narration. A little predictable at times, but that's genre fiction. Enjoyable.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Solid and depressing

Any additional comments?

Good, not great, mystery. As always, I enjoy mysteries written by non-American and non-British authors (or at least set in places that are not the UK or America), for their vantage point into different cultures and norms. This mystery takes place in Iceland, and with the insular nature of an island nation, there is a certain closeness in the story and an inter-connectedness of events and people. The story revolves around a veteran detective whose life seems compact and and strained, with a partially estranged daughter struggling with drug issues and his own solitary existence revolving around his job, fast food, and the warring emotions of worry and disgust over his daughter. The story uncovers two unsavory histories, one much more deeply than the other, where men abused women and the ramifications were immense. The story, on the whole, is rather depressing. The unraveling is fairly well done, though the detective's insistence on his lines of inquiry, though successful, do not make much sense without knowing how it would end. I'm not sure I'll continue the series, but it was interesting nonetheless.

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