ABSTRACT
This paper analyses how setting is deployed in the work of the Icelandic crime writer, Arnaldur Indriðason. Through an examination of the Erlendur novels, this chapter reads the fictional representation of Iceland in conjunction with the nationalistic imagination of Icelandic landscape. Landscape painting played a significant role in developing an ‘Icelandic’ landscape. Beginning from landscape painting, I trace how an Icelandic landscape aesthetic is reflected in Icelandic tourism campaigns and is carried over into crime fiction. I argue that landscape painting, tourism and crime fiction come together to produce an aesthetic imaginary of Icelandic nationhood.
