Arctic chill, By Arnaldur Indridason, trans. Bernard Scudder & Victoria Cribb

The books of Icelandic crime writer Arnaldur Indridason may seem esoteric, but this is a situation that is fast changing. A film adaptation of his Jar City has won rave reviews, and UK bookselling chains are promoting crime in translation, possibly on the assumption that bloodshed in foreign climes will tempt punters eager to escape from credit-crunch Britain.

So the appearance of Arctic Chill is timely – or is it? Although the book is as trenchantly written as anything by this author, it's not the best place for new readers to start. While Indridason's coppers Erlendur and Sigurdur Oli are as flinty as ever, aficionados will be aware that narrative is always foregrounded. What little we learn about the personalities of the two men is always supplied on the hoof. There is little room in Indridason's terse style to dwell on the niceties of personality as he peels back layer upon layer of the mystery.

Here, it's page 46 before we have anything involving the private life of Erlendur and his lover – and we're grateful for this release from a grim murder investigation. The details of the police procedural are as authoritatively handled as ever. On a freezing winter's day in Reykjavik, Erlendur is called to a block of flats where the body of a young Thai boy has been found, frozen in a pool of blood. The boy's half-brother has disappeared; is he also a murder victim, or implicated in the killing? As Erlendur and colleagues talk to the boy's splintered family, a dispiriting picture begins to emerge of multicultural Iceland.

There are uncomfortable echoes of British society, with its division and anger over immigration. But there is no knee-jerk liberal response: intriguingly, his own sympathies are hard to locate. The immigrants, convinced that the murder is racially motivated, are not painted as blameless victims, and neither are the resentful Icelanders tarred with the brush of unreasoning prejudice. As Erlendur realises, there are myriad points of view: it's his job to restore a balance before more people die. Rugged fare – but is the stripped-down, sinewy prose (ably translated by Bernard Scudder and Victoria Cribb), with its economical characterisation, likely to win over those unfamiliar with Indridason's mean streets?