When we last saw Icelandic police detective Helgi Reykdal, he was lying unconscious in a pool of blood after being bashed in the head by his violent alcoholic wife in last fall’s “Death at the Sanatorium.”

But now, in the opening of Ragnar Jónasson’s “The Mysterious Case of the Missing Crime Writer,” the cliffhanger has been resolved. Helgi has recovered from his injury and is enjoying life with a new girlfriend named Anita.

Jónasson is a devoted fan of puzzle mysteries by Agatha Christie and other writers from the genre’s golden era and has given Helgi the same obsession, so the young detective is thrilled to investigate the sudden disappearance of best-selling crime novelist Elin S. Jonsdottir.

The tale is told in three timelines. In 2005, a journalist is interviewing Elin, who reveal

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