Driving and Walking Tours Acquit Dimma, Anglicized as The Darkness

Summary: Driving and walking tours acquit Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness, first thriller in the Hidden Iceland crime fiction series by Ragnar Jónasson.

The small town of Njardvík accommodates such asylum-seekers as Russian-speaking Elena and Katja and Syrian Arabic-speaking Amena through a hostel that acts as a basic, clean, safe bed-and-breakfast. The Njardvík hostel attracts the attention of Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir with Elena's death, Katja's disappearance and Amena's scheduled deportation; Aug. 5, 2009, image of Ytri-Njarðvík (Ytri-Njardvik) in Reykjanesbaer as viewed from plane departing from Keflavik Airport.: Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungato), CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Driving and walking tours acquit the ending of Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness, first thriller in the three-book Hidden Iceland crime fiction series authored by Ragnar Jónasson about Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir.

The first book about Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir begins with Reykjavík nursing home employee Emma Margeirsdóttir not bemoaning the primary school-area hit-and-run of a convicted pedophile. The third-person narrative regularly considers Reykjavík children’s home, cheap apartments and maternal grandparents’ housing configuring an unmarried mother’s daughter with an American soldier in the 1940s. Hulda dwells in a fourth-floor apartment in a city tower block around the corner from a supermarket whose Coke and Prins Póló chocolate wafers delight her.

Magnús, her boss in the Hverfisgata Police Station’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) ends Hulda examining the hit-and-run case with the pedophile’s expiring at National Hospital.

Hulda follows the Reykjavík dual carriageway 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) south to the Vatnsleysuströnd coastal stretch of the Reykjanes peninsula to Flekkuvík cove on Faxaflói bay.

Her Škoda from the present Czech Republic, as Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, gets Hulda past her seaside home with daughter Dimma and husband Jón at Álftanes. It heads Hulda past Keflavík airport, police station and United States military base to Njardvík hotel for asylum-seekers, respectively 15- and 20-plus-minute drives from Flekkuvík cove. The Reykjanes peninsula’s bleak, dark, treeless lava fields in southwest Iceland inspire Hulda much less than views southward and southeastward from Faxaflói bay’s north, Reykjavík side.

Actual and virtual driving and walking tours of southwest Iceland justify Hulda judging views from and toward mountains as spectacular in Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness.

Mountain-climbing such summits as Mounts Akrafjall, Esja and Skardsheidi and perhaps conical, low-lying Keilir keep Hulda kinetic and kindle an Esja-climbing date with walking-club member Pétur.

Pétur lives in a large house, where he likes barbecued lamb and red wine and Mount Esja views, in the “desirable” (Jónasson 2018: 61) Fossvogur suburb. He mentions dinner-dating Hulda at Reykjavík’s “swishest” (2018: 181) establishment, Hótel Holt, where Jón, Hulda and Dimma managed an anniversary celebration 20 to 30 years earlier. He never nostalgiacizes the landmark, town-center Hótel Borg, whose 30th-anniversary Sovereignty Day celebrations Dec. 1, 1948 netted Reykjavík poet Tomás Gudmundsson (Jan. 6, 1901-Nov. 14, 1983).

Driving and walking tours to uninhabited highlands and valleys 1.5 hours from Reykjavík and eastern ice caps occupy Bjartur Hartmannsson in Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness.

Hulda prefers Pétur’s posh residence to Bjartur’s converted detached garage alongside his parents’ suburban residence west of town, where wholesale dealer Áki Akason possesses a villa.

The “leafy” (2018: 137) Grafarvogur suburb quarters the cozy Albertsson house, where Hulda quests Albert, asylum-seekers’ and Litla-Hraun prisoners’ lawyer, and brother Bardur, black jeep-driving tradesman. Hulda revels in Tryggvagata stand hot dogs, Kjarvalsstadir art gallery café apple pie and coffee just outside town center and perhaps, like her mother, Gamla Bió. She stops once at Urridavellir golf course in Heidmörk Nature Preserve outside southeast Reykjavík city limits and never studies at Moscow State University or Reykjavík College.

Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness, turns Hulda from coastal mountainside farming near Vatnajökull ice cap in southeast Iceland’s Skaftafell district, toward Reykjavík-area driving and walking tours.

Bjartur Hartmannson aided Russian-speaking asylum-seekers Elena and Katja through his interpreter and translator services. His studies at Moscow State University allowed him to achieve fluent mastery of different levels, from conversational Russian to legal terminology. He assists Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir, who perhaps aspired to education like that of her maternal uncle at Reykjavík College, which perhaps never awarded her any degree; Moscow University (Московский университет), 1911 watercolor by Russian painter Konstantin Yuon (Oct. 24 [O.S. Oct. 12] 1875-April 11, 1958): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

The small town of Njardvík accommodates such asylum-seekers as Russian-speaking Elena and Katja and Syrian Arabic-speaking Amena through a hostel that acts as a basic, clean, safe bed-and-breakfast. The Njardvík hostel attracts the attention of Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir with Elena's death, Katja's disappearance and Amena's scheduled deportation; Aug. 5, 2009, image of Ytri-Njarðvík (Ytri-Njardvik) in Reykjanesbaer as viewed from plane departing from Keflavik Airport.: Marek Ślusarczyk (Tupungato), CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ytri-Njarðvík,_Reykjanesbaer,_Iceland.jpg

Bjartur Hartmannson aided Russian-speaking asylum-seekers Elena and Katja through his interpreter and translator services. His studies at Moscow State University allowed him to achieve fluent mastery of different levels, from conversational Russian to legal terminology. He assists Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir, who perhaps aspired to education like that of her maternal uncle at Reykjavík College, which perhaps never awarded her any degree; Moscow University (Московский университет), 1911 watercolor by Russian painter Konstantin Yuon (Oct. 24 [O.S. Oct. 12] 1875-April 11, 1958): Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moscow_Universitet.jpg

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