RaveWashington Independent Review of BooksIn the isolated town of Raufarhöfn, Kalmann Odinsson — a neurodivergent man who wears a cowboy hat, gun, and badge given to him by his long-gone American father — is the self-appointed \'sheriff\'...He relishes his role and the comfort of carrying the objects, though he does not in any sense function as a law-enforcement officer...Instead, he makes a living as a shark hunter, carrying on the profession taught to him by his beloved grandfather, who made Iceland’s best hákarl, a delicacy featuring fermented shark meat...His world is so ordered and stable, in fact, that a tourist sitting at Kalmann’s customary table in a local restaurant upends his equilibrium...Naturally, the arrival of a policeman from Reykjavik to investigate the blood and missing person catapults Kalmann far outside his comfort zone, sweeping him up in a possible homicide investigation...Kalmann is a whodunit, but it’s far more than that...On one level, author Joachim B. Schmidt has set up the dying town as a critical character, playing on the remote, unusual setting and its inhabitants...These are people whose existence is challenged daily by the elements...They rely on the sea but also each other...Truly, their survival depends on their interconnectedness both with one another and the water.
