"Brilliant . . . a tour de force." -
The New York Times Book Review
"Powerfully accomplished. . . .
Absolution sets long reverberations tolling in the reader's mind." -
The New York Review of Books "A clever, unexpectedly enjoyable novel of crime and punishment." -
The New York Times "A fascinating, wintry tale of a frozen heart." -
The Wall Street Journal
"A literary triumph. . . . The book works extremely well both as a psychological thriller and as a character study." -
The European "A solemn, intellectually challenging work." -
Chicago Tribune "The first book in English by this top-notch Nordic novelist, who may become that true rarity, an Icelandic Nobel Prize winner." -
Forbes Magazine "Surprisingly effective. . . . This story of crime and punishment is an impressive novel. . . . A modest, but not unworthy, offspring of Dostoevsky's towering predecessor." -
The Economist "Compulsive reading, and the spare, dry language concentrates the suspense. . . . As cold and lucid as a quartz crystal." -
Independent on Sunday "Spellbinding. . . . Formidably written." -
Entertainment Weekly "The novel whose aftertaste has lingered longest this year is
Absolution. . . . Its deep humanity and elegiac tone made it oddly exhilarating. . . . A superlative example of the genre, which reverberates in the reader's mind because of the craftsmanship and integrity which Olafsson has brought to the story." -
Sunday Telegraph "[A] sophisticated novel . . . written in clear, sparse prose." -
The Times (London)
"Olafsson's debut as a writer in English has more than curiosity value: this is a fine novel." -
Time Out "Icelander Olafsson's style has the linear austerity and emotionally supercharged restraint that seems a Nordic hallmark. . . . The honesty of this first-person account of a traumatised conscience holds the attention. The slow-burning fuse of the narrator's guilt . . . smoulders through skilled writing and narrative integrity." -
The Observer
"Funny, sad and utterly enjoyable." -
The Spectator
Peter Peterson, an Icelandic expatriate living in New York, is racked by nightmares about a crime of passion he may have committed a half-century before out of an unrequited love. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.