Kalmann

This atmospheric crime thriller laced with humor—described by some as a Coen Brothers take on Forrest Gump--is set in the village of Raufarhöfn in the far north of Iceland. Kalmann Odinsson is the self-appointed Sheriff of his town. He is 34, neurodiverse and hunts Arctic foxes and catches gigantic Greenland sharks for a living. He was brought up by his grandfather who taught him how to hunt and fish and “nearly everything else a man needs to know about life”.
Mocked--but also loved by some--for his innocence and unfiltered philosophical utterances, one of his many dreams is to find a wife. But he must first extricate himself from the mess he gets into when he discovers a frozen pool of human blood in the winter snow. When it becomes apparent that local bigwig Robert McKenzie has just gone missing, the hunt is on to find McKenzie’s body and his murderer. In a macabre turn of events, McKenzie’s hand is discovered in the belly of a shark that Kalmann brings in. It all ends well, but as Kalmann says, “It can all get pretty dark underneath a polar bear.”


Genre: Mystery

"A Swiss author writes a book that takes placein Raufarhofn and creates characters that are more Icelandic than anything Icelandic. What kind of magician is this?" - Hallgrímur Helgason

"Schmidt's novels show sensitivity to how the accumulation of seemingly small events makes up the drama of human life." - Sjón