Dark Things in the Night and the Arctic Cold

So I press on with my Read Harder Challenge.  One item on the list is:

'Read a book with a main character that has a mental illness'

The Bird of Night by Susan Hill fulfils this category very well.  It also ticks a box on my Booker Shortlist Personal Challenge.  It is a bleak read and not a long one.  Unfortunately the author commented in 2006 "It is a novel of mine that was shortlisted for Booker and won the Whitbread Prize for Fiction. It was a book I have never rated. I don't think it works, though there are a few good things in it. I don't believe in the characters or the story.  

Hill is known for her gothic style and penchant for a ghost story several of which she wrote in the 80s and early 90s.  Her 21st century novels are, in one way, lighter being thrillers written around her detective character, Simon Serrailler.  In terms of writing they are rather lightweight when compared to, for example, The Bird of Night.  But she has captured an audience with Simon Serrailler and this sells books and pays bill!

Moving swiftly on therefore I come to three detective novels written by Icelandic authors.  Two, by Arnaldur Indridason, are part of a crime fiction series written around the character Inspector Erlendur.

Strange Shores and Hypothermia are full of Icelandic atmosphere.  Having recently renewed my acquaintance with Iceland in general and Reykjavik in particular and rekindled my enjoyment of everything the country has to offer,
and given my fondness for a good thriller, these are books to enjoy for their page-turning qualities added to which there is an ongoing story surrounding
Erlendur and his early life, during which he experiences the death of his younger brother, in circumstances the nature of which he has not been able to establish. 

Another Icelandic writer, Ragnar Jonasson has also captured my attention.  His output is not quite so prolific but he is the author of the Dark Iceland series in which there are only two titles published so far but three further novels planned according to his website.  I've read Night Blind and I now need to retrace steps and read the first title, Snow Blind.   As with Indridason we are in the realms of Icelandic noir, atmospheric with good characterisation and plotting.  The tension sucks you into a claustrophobic story whose main protagonist is a novice police detective Ari Thor.  The peace of a close-knit Icelandic community is shattered by the murder of a policeman - shot at point-blank range in the dead of night in a deserted house. With a killer on the loose and the dark Arctic waters closing in, it falls to Ari Thor to piece together a puzzle that involves tangled local politics, a compromised new mayor and a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik where someone is being held against their will...