The Girl by the Bridge: A Detective Konrad Novel

by Arnaldur Indridason

Overview

18 million copies sold worldwide!

An elderly couple are worried about their granddaughter. They know she's been smuggling drugs, and now she's gone missing. Looking for help, they turn to Konrad, a former policeman whose reputation precedes him.

Always absent-minded, he constantly ruminates on the fate of his father, who was stabbed to death decades ago. But digging into the past reveals much more than anyone set out to discover, and a little girl who drowned in the Reykjavik city pond unexpectedly captures everyone's attention.

A brilliant, chilling tale of broken dreams and children who have nowhere to turn.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250892614
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/15/2025
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	250,560
Product dimensions:	5.38(w) x 8.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

ARNALDUR INDRIDASON worked for many years as a journalist and critic before he began writing novels. His books have since sold over eighteen million copies world-wide. He won the CWA Gold Dagger for Silence of the Grave and is the only author to win the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel two years in a row, for Jar City and Silence of the Grave. The Shadow District—the first of the Flovent and Thorson Thrillers—won the Premio RBA de Novela Negra, the world’s most lucrative crime fiction prize.

Editorial Reviews

05/08/2023

Past and present are deeply intertwined in Indridason’s knotty yet rewarding second outing for retired Reykjavik detective Konrád (after The Darkness Knows). The plot is deliberately tangled: at the start, Konrád is investigating the disappearance of a young woman on behalf of her prominent grandparents, who are eager to avoid publicity about their granddaughter’s involvement with drugs. Eventually, he finds the woman dead, seemingly of an overdose, though Konrád has his doubts. Meanwhile, a medium named Eygló—the daughter of a friend of Konrád’s long-deceased father—has a vision of a girl who died in a Reykjavik pond in 1961, and enlists Konrád’s help to find out more. Konrád is skeptical of Eygló’s abilities, until his own ongoing investigation into his father’s unsolved murder turns up clear evidence of the woman’s clairvoyance. Before long, Konrád becomes determined to find the hidden connections between the trio of criss-crossing, decades-spanning killings—of his father, the girl in the pond, and the woman who “overdosed.” Indridason spins his multilayered narrative into an unnerving story of old crimes and their enduring reverberations, bringing it all to a powerful and well-earned denouement. This a treat for fans of brainy, complex mysteries. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Short, crisply written chapters move the action briskly along while keeping all the seemingly disparate pieces of the puzzle in the mix. Veteran Indridason weaves all these eerie elements together masterfully. Superb crime fiction from an acclaimed virtuoso." – Kirkus Reviews

"Indridason’s storytelling flows as smoothly as ever here, and Konrád, introduced in The Darkness Knows (2021) establishes himself as a compelling truth-seeker." – Booklist

"An unnerving story of old crimes and their enduring reverberations, [with] a powerful and well-earned denouement. This a treat for fans of brainy, complex mysteries." - Publisher's Weekly

"What affected me most was the rueful tenderness of Indridason’s prose.... Indridason’s signature melancholy still wafts through the novel." - New York Times Book Review

"An outstanding work, an uncanny tale of evils past and present" - The Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

★ 2023-02-08
Unanswered questions from the past are not easily put to rest.

An elderly couple contacts retired Reykjavík police detective Konrád for advice in dealing with Danní, their wayward granddaughter, whom they haven’t seen for a few days and who they suspect is working as a drug mule. This search becomes the anchor in a compelling mystery with deep themes and a complex plot, but even before the reader is introduced to the kindly couple, two other dark scenes are presented, casting a spectral shadow over all that follows. First, a young writer on an evening stroll sees a doll floating in the water near the city center and, upon closer examination, discovers a girl’s corpse nearby. And second, in a flashback, Konrád’s friend Eygló encounters a ghost while attending a young classmate’s birthday party, a memory that will haunt her for decades. Konrád is haunted by his own ghosts, especially the unsolved murder of his father more than 50 years ago. Soon Danní is found dead under suspicious circumstances, and the case falls to Konrád’s old friend Marta at the CID, who asks him to continue on the case because he’s developed a rapport with the grandparents. Suspicion falls on Danní’s boyfriend, Lassi, who runs afoul of some ruthless characters. When Eygló becomes convinced that her ghost is the girl in the pond, she presses Konrád to find the man who saw her. Short, crisply written chapters move the action briskly along while keeping all the seemingly disparate pieces of the puzzle in the mix. Veteran Indridason weaves all these eerie elements together masterfully.

Superb crime fiction from an acclaimed virtuoso.

Kirkus Reviews