VOICES

VOICES
Arnaldur Indridason
St. Martin's Minotaur, 313 pp.



Here is another great read set in Iceland, with Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson back in action. It is almost Christmas when Gudlaugur, a hotel doorman and seasonal Santa, is found dead in a small room in the hotel's basement. It turns out that Gudlaugur was once a famous child singer, a choirboy, who had made two records and enjoyed a bit more than 15 minutes of fame as a boy soprano.

How has the choirboy ended up here, forgotten and ignored and, as we learn, detested by his sister and father?

Once again Indridason's melancholy voice gives the answer, or tries to, while taking a side trip down a case of child abuse that challenges one of the detectives' assumptions.

I enjoy the sense of experiencing Iceland at Christmas. Reykjavik is swarming with tourists, who vacation there out of some desire to see what winter is like in the land of long, black nights and brief days. One of the tourists is a record collector, come to find Gudlaugur, the voice on his most cherished records.

Don't miss this excellent story, translated from the Icelandic by Bernard Scudder.

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY

MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY
Movie (2008), 92 min
Director: Bharat Nalluri



This goofy movie, set in just-before-WWII London, is about a woman who can’t make it as a nanny/governess and essentially cons her way, by “omission” of certain facts, into a day as the “social secretary” for a young, ambitious American actress.

Frances McDormand, as Miss Guinevere Pettigrew, is both a fright and a jewel. She carries off dropping her plate in a soup kitchen with the same startled distress she shows the next day, when a fancy catered snack slides off her plate at a party. Distress because she’s hungry throughout the movie; startled because she’s lost another chance to eat. McDormand is funny.

The young American actress, Delysia, who is juggling three men as nimbly as she can toss them, is played by Amy Adams. She is so frothy it’s hard to believe this is the same actress who played the doubly serious Sister James in “Doubt,” but she pulls it off. Nick, whose elegant flat she occupies, is a slick night club operator, played old-style Mafia-like. Handsome Lee Pace, the pianist Delysia sings with, is an Irishman with tickets to New York. Naturally, Delysia’s third man, a playboy spending Daddy’s money on a show, flits about in the mix somewhere.

All is fairly predictable. There’s even a high-powered lingerie designer to take an interest in our Guinevere. You can see the end coming pretty clearly before too long into the movie, but . . . there are some surprises.

The middle drags a bit and overplays the Guinevere-needs-food bit from time to time, but altogether this is a romp. I enjoyed it. If you like happy endings where the fools get theirs, this movie is for you.