Jar City characters

Appears from the start

A veteran Reykjavik detective whose patient, solitary methods are better suited to old secrets than to office politics. Erlendur is divorced and has a painfully distant relationship with his two adult children. The apparently ordinary murder of an elderly man strikes him as less simple than it first appears.

First appears in chapter 2

A younger detective on Erlendur's team, educated in the United States and inclined toward modern procedures. He is impatient with Erlendur's instinctive approach but remains an important investigator on the case.

First appears in chapter 2

A detective working with Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli. Elinborg is observant and practical, and she helps trace the victim's history while balancing police work with family life.

Appears from the start

The elderly man found murdered in his basement flat in Nordurmyri. Holberg lived alone and initially seems to have been the random victim of a clumsy burglary, but the cryptic note left on his body suggests that someone wanted his past examined.

First appears in chapter 4

Erlendur's adult daughter, who struggles with drug dependence and confronts her father about his long absence from her life. Pregnant and uncertain about her future, Eva Lind moves unpredictably between asking him for help and accusing him of failing his family.

First appears in chapter 7

Erlendur's adult son and Eva Lind's brother. Sindri has his own history of addiction and shares the consequences of Erlendur's separation from their mother, though he engages with his father less forcefully than Eva does.

First appears in chapter 8

A retired senior police officer and Erlendur's former mentor. Marion remembers investigative practices and institutional habits from the period when the events behind Holberg's murder first reached the authorities.

First appears in chapter 12

A woman who accused Holberg of rape many years before his death. Kolbrun's complaint was dismissed, leaving her to bear the crime's consequences with little help from the police or her community.

First appears in chapter 12

Kolbrun's sister and a keeper of the family's painful history. She tells Erlendur what happened after the old rape allegation and gives the investigation a view of Holberg that the original police record failed to preserve.

First appears in chapter 13

Kolbrun's daughter, conceived after the assault and dead in childhood from a rare illness. A photograph connected with Audur's grave becomes one of the clues showing Erlendur that the murder is rooted in family history.

First appears in chapter 18

An old associate of Holberg whose name emerges as detectives reconstruct the victim's conduct toward women. Runar is reluctant to discuss their shared past and the people harmed by it.

First appears in chapter 33

A man whose young daughter died from a rare hereditary disease. His search for an explanation brings him into contact with Iceland's unusually traceable family records and with the history Erlendur is uncovering.