Not All Are Accounted For in Dimma, Anglicized as The Darkness

Summary: Not all are accounted for in Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness, in the 2018 translation of the 2015 Icelandic crime fiction thriller by Ragnar Jónasson.

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir accesses bittersweet memories each time she angles her Škoda in and out of north- and south-bound traffic on the Reykjavík dual carriageway from the capital city to the Flekkuvík crime scene and the Njardvík hostel and back. The seaside house that she so adored with daughter Dimma and husband Jón appears among the financial casualties of widowhood from a husband who arranged his owner-operated investment firm most disastrously; Aug. 21, 2018, image of Galgahraun, near Reykjavík, Iceland: Hornstrandir1, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Not all are accounted for in the ending of Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness, in the 2018 translation by Victoria Cribb of the 2015 Icelandic crime fiction thriller authored by Ragnar Jónasson.

Author Ragnar Jónasson begins the first book in his three-book Hidden Iceland series with Emma Margeirsdóttir and Hulda Hermannsdóttir, whose behaviors and beliefs broker his plot. Emma cares for her son, who counts among a pedophile’s casualties, without any cooperation from his father and for patients confined to the Reykjavík nursing home. Hulda, as 64-year-old Detective Inspector in the Reykjavík Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID), delves into the hit-and-run that dispatches the pedophile to the National Hospital.

Thirteen-year-old daughter Dimma and 52-year-old husband Jón respectively expiring as a suicide and from massive cardiac arrest ensure a lonely personal, troubling financial existence for Hulda.

Her husband’s debt-filled owner-operated investment firm forces Hulda, who finds a tower-block flat, to sell their fine family house at seaside Álftanes and her Reykjavík flat.

Hulda gives her downtime to mountain-climbing such summits as Akrafjall, Esja and Skardsheidi, whereby she gets acquainted with a retired, 70-year-old, wealthy surgeon guarding walking-club membership. Pétur has a huge house, which his wife helped him build before her affair five years before he retired at 60, in the acclaimed Fossvogur neighborhood. Impending involvement with a wealthy doctor, who also is a wealthy doctor’s son, implies personal socio-economic improvement for Hulda, whom police colleagues and superiors never include.

Hulda journeyed from a Reykjavík children’s home, to an apartment with her mother two years later, to her grandparents’ house in Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness.

Her mother, whose parents kept her minimally educated but her brother knowledgeable all the way through Reykjavík College, knew Hulda’s American-born father by first name only.

Hulda, unlike Karen, whom she leads through such leaps as vice squad and even higher levels in police hierarchies, lacks an overlapping personal and professional life. Her managing two murderous cases, off coastal south Iceland and in eastern Iceland, musters no respect from her boss Magnús, monikered Maggi, or her fellow detectives. Hulda notices nicer behavior from lawyer Albert Albertsson and his tradesman brother Bardur than from Alexander and Thrándur, human-trafficking, sex-industry specialist natally named, as half-Faroese, Trondor.

Such asylum-seekers as Russian-speaking Elena and Katja, who perhaps obtained residence permits before their respective death and disappearance, occupy Hulda more than deportable, Syrian Arabic-speaking Amena.

Áki Akason, wholesale dealer possessing a single-story villa west of Reykjavík, perhaps from human-trafficking profits, presents himself more politely than Keflavík Police Station Duty Sergeant Óliver.

Hulda quickly questions Dóra, as manager of the Njardvík hostel for asylum-seekers, and Bjartur Hartmannsson, as Moscow State University graduate and Russian asylum-seeker and tour-guide interpreter. Albert and Baldur respectfully receive Hulda at the cosy residence that they retained from their parents’ down-sized retirement, in Grafarvogur, Reykjavík’s “leafy” (2018: page 137) suburb. Bjartur similarly speaks with Hulda inside the converted detached garage situated near the detached house where his septuagenarian parents settle as wealthy suburbanites west of Reykjavík.

Dimma, anglicized as The Darkness, tracks all travelers excepting Emma’s husband and son, Hulda’s brother and father, Amena’s lawyer and one whose telling tells the ending.

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir appreciates the northern, Reykjavík view southward across Faxaflói bay to Mount Esja, one of the summits that she allows herself to mountain-climb in her downtime. Perhaps that view attracts her even more from walking-club acquaintance Pétur's backyard in the affluent Fossvogur suburb; June 11, 2008, image of Esja: Axel Kristinsson (axelkr) from Reykjavík, Iceland, CC BY 2.0 Generic, 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:

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir accesses bittersweet memories each time she angles her Škoda in and out of north- and south-bound traffic on the Reykjavík dual carriageway from the capital city to the Flekkuvík crime scene and the Njardvík hostel and back. The seaside house that she so adored with daughter Dimma and husband Jón appears among the financial casualties of widowhood from a husband who arranged his owner-operated investment firm most disastrously; Aug. 21, 2018, image of Galgahraun, near Reykjavík, Iceland: Hornstrandir1, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Galgahraun_Aug._2018_11.jpg

Detective Inspector Hulda Hermannsdóttir appreciates the northern, Reykjavík view southward across Faxaflói bay to Mount Esja, one of the summits that she allows herself to mountain-climb in her downtime. Perhaps that view attracts her even more from walking-club acquaintance Pétur's backyard in the affluent Fossvogur suburb; June 11, 2008, image of Esja: Axel Kristinsson (axelkr) from Reykjavík, Iceland, CC BY 2.0 Generic, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Esja_(2571116699).jpg

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