Indriðason, Arnaldur

The Icelandic crime writer Arnaldur Indriðason, the son of the author Indriði Þorsteinsson, was born in Reykjavik. Arnaldur Indriðason completed his upper-secondary education in 1981 and went on to read history at the University of Iceland, graduating in 1996. He has been a journalist, and between 1986 and 2001 he reviewed film for Iceland's biggest daily newspaper, Morgunblaðið. Deterred by his father, who spent more time with his manuscripts than with his family, Indriðason had no intention of becoming an author to start with, but he changed his mind when the Icelandic crime-writing scene began to develop. He now writes full time and lives in Reykjavik with his wife and three children. Arnaldur Indriðason is the most famous names in a generation of Icelandic crime writers that started to emerge in the 1990s that have also won international fame. Inspector Erlendur and his assistant Sigurður Óli were introduced in his first novel, Synir duftsins (1997), and the pair returned the following year in Dauðarósir. These two novels are essentially conventional detective stories inspired by, for example, the Swedish crime writing couple Sjöwall & Wahlöö and are proof that Indriðason had a real gift for writing crime novels from the outset.