Absolution (Olafsson novel)

Absolution is a 1991 novel by Olaf Olafsson about the mind of a man haunted by the crime he planned half a century earlier.

Absolution
First edition (Icelandic)
AuthorOlaf Olafsson
Original titleFyrirgefning syndanna
LanguageEnglish
GenreFiction
PublisherVaka-Helgafell (Iceland)
Pantheon (US)
Publication date
1991
Publication placeUnited States
Published in English
1994
Media typePrint (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages259[1] (Hardcover)
272[2] (Paperback)
ISBN0-679-42891-7

Synopsis

edit

When he died, Peter Peterson left behind the trappings of a seemingly charmed life: a vast fortune, two children, and a stately Park Avenue address. But he left something else behind: a sheaf of confessions about a dark period of his youth. In pages written weeks before his death, he reveals a crime of passion, committed in the throes of unrequited love, that has burdened him for his entire life. Yet as he finishes his story, he encounters a surprise that will shake the very foundation of his past. Spanning a boyhood in Iceland to the Nazi occupation of Denmark to a cunning business career in modern-day Manhattan, Absolution echoes Dostoevsky and Ibsen as it masterfully plumbs the darkest corners of a sinister mind and a wounded heart.[3]

Critical reception

edit

“Compulsive reading, and the spare, dry language concentrates the suspense…As cold and lucid as a quartz crystal.” – The Independent on Sunday (UK) [4]

References

edit
  1. ^ "Absolution (Hardcover)". Amazon.ca.
  2. ^ Absolution (Paperback). ISBN 1400030684.
  3. ^ "Random House". Retrieved 2011-11-10.
  4. ^ "Independent UK". The Independent. London. 1994-05-08. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2011-11-10.
edit