Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason

!!!!!Warning of a possible spoiler as I name that disease!!!!

True to my pledge to read more crime and making that easy on myself by picking up another Arnaldur Indridason, I was rapidly back in the cold, dank grey wastes of Iceland.
I've read these in the wrong order so Jar City is the one to start with if you haven't read any.
Like Silence of the Grave expect not only digging underground but digging back into the past as Erlendur rattles around Reykjavik trying to piece together cryptic notes on dead bodies, unsolved crimes from the past all interlaced with up to the minute issues around genetic diseases and storage of information and use of body parts after death.
I'm pleased to report that I named that disease in about four, cafe au lait patches had me onto it eventually but in old money.When I trained it was called von Recklinghausen's disease, now there is a spellable version.It was often thought that this was Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man's problem, but in fact he had something much rarer called Proteus Syndrome.
One of the advantages of nursing at The London Hospital in Whitechapel was the chance to go into the hospital museum where they have all sorts of Elephant Man bits and pieces and I see this is now open to the public so well worth a visit.
Erlendur is your quirky, gruff detective with the angst and the baggage and there's plenty more of it here.My Icelandic is coming along quite nicely and I sense with this and Steerforth's great posts on his trip to Iceland over on his blog I'm becoming more acquainted with a country I've largely ignored. Independent People by Halldor Laxness is waiting in the wings which I'm hoping may be enough to make me into a local.
I was delighted to think I had more Indridason at the ready so I opened Tainted Blood next and was a bit surprised to see it was also about genetic diseases and bodies with notes on them...yes same book, different title.Maxine, are you there? You mentioned a massive plot flaw in this book and it has passed me by, tell me tell me.I obviously wasn't concentrating hard enough.
I now have Voices lined up, don't tell me that's Silence of the Grave by another name.