This is the 6th book in the series, but I have only read books 3, 4 and 5 due to the order that they were translated into English. I really like the characters, Inspectors Erlendur, Elinborg and Sigurdur Oli form a formidable team. The murder case here takes them back to the cold war and soviet spies, communist East Germany, and left-wing student groups. There are also glimpses into Erlendur’s personal life through his relationships especially with Marion and Eva Lind.
The historical elements and the modern mystery are smoothly intertwined to make for a story that has good pacing and flows. The characters are fully fleshed out and engaging with all their very human flaws. I have enjoyed all the books in this series so far and look forward to reading more!
The Angry Grey Cat Reads 
These sound promising. Do you feel like not being able to read the full series due to teanslation had impacted your experience? Great review!
There have been a few things that you can tell there was build up to the inspectors relationships in earlier books that you miss out on, however overall you can read the books from where the translations start. For some reason this seems to be a problem with several Nordic series, they start translating at book 3 or 4. They even call it TOOOS – translated out of order syndrome 🙂 Hopefully they will evntually go back and translate the first couple.
It really makes no sense to me. You have wonder how they decide which books to translate. Is it based on some odd ratings system or something? Why would you not start from book one? Curious. I am glad they are still working out though 🙂