Dauðans óvissi tími ('Death's uncertain hour') is a 2004 novel by Þráinn Bertelsson, first published in Reykjavík by JPV Útgáfa. The title alludes to the seventeenth-century poem 'Um dauðans óvissa tíma' ('On death's uncertain hour') by Hallgrímur Pétursson. It is a darkly comical crime novel, but also to a significant extent a Roman à clef about the business activities of Björgólfur Guðmundsson during the 1990s and early 2000s,[1] [2] addressing a range of political, economic, and cultural questions of Iceland of its time, and has been characterised as 'eitt af brautryðjandi verkum á sviði íslenskra hrunbókmennta' ('one of the path-breaking works of Icelandic financial-crisis fiction').[3] It is the first in a series of books, the second being Valkyrjur (Reykjavík: JPV, 2005).
The novel is told in the third person through an omniscient narrator. Particularly in §I, events are often related out of chronological order, with clear date markers in chapter headings. The reader is frequently in possession of more information about events than the protagonists themselves.
The work is rich in metatextual literary allusions. For example, the banker Haraldur Rúriksson (himself a cipher for the real-life Björgólfur Guðmundsson), takes his patronym from the legendary viking founder of Kievan Rus'; the novel features a newspaper editor called Tómas Davíðsson, which name Þráinn himself used as a pen-name in his 1987 Tungumál fuglanna;[4] and the bank robbers Þorgeir and Þormóður are based on the eponymous foster-brothers of the medieval Icelandic Fóstbræðra saga.[5] The book states that the troubling Russian connections of Haraldur Rúriksson can be read about in the journal EuroCapital, in a transparent allusion to an article in Euromoney.[6]
In the estimation of Hlynur Páll Pálsson, the novel also stands out for its 'choice gallery of characters. A great many characters are introduced into the story without confusing the reader, because behind each stands characterisation and wry stories which make each one unique'.[7]
The novel is divided into three sections:
§I focuses on recounting the career of Haraldur Rúriksson from 1986 to 2004. In a story paralleling the real-life Hafskip-affair, Haraldur attempts to establish a shipping company, Farskip, to compete with the dominant company, Gufuskipafélagið (a cipher for Eimskip), but is bankrupted by the dubious actions of his competitors. He takes up the invitation of a one-time employee, Magnús Valgarðsson, and an associate of his, Cameron Stout, to go into the alcopop business in post-communist St Petersburg. Rumours are reported that Haraldur defrauded his associates of their shares in the business just before it became enormously profitable and he successfully sells it to a major European brewery. This story parallels Björgólfur Guðmundsson's role in establishing Bravo Brewery and later selling it to Heineken. By 2004, through the privatisation of Iceland's banking system, Haraldur has been able to buy his old creditor, the Þjóðbankinn (a cipher for Landsbanki), and avenge past shame by buying the Gufuskipafélagið, via his holding company JOB Global Holdings (an allusion to the real-life Björgólfur's Samson ehf.).
§I also introduces us to Haraldur's best friend, Rúnar; two boys in a violent foster-home, Þorgeirr and Þórmóður; a would-be priest turned detective, Víkingur; and two eastern European psychopaths, the Czech Petra Vlkova and the Russian Vasilí Basmanov, who become a couple and begin working for St Petersburg's pre-eminent oligarch, Mikhail Moisejevitsj Levítan (founding, it later emerges, a security company-cum-protection racket called Opritsjnina Group).
§II comprises the bulk of the novel, intertwining accounts of two murder investigations headed by Víkingur.
§III is a coda in which Haraldur's old business associate Magnús Valgarðsson, dying of cancer, confidentially confesses to Víkingur that he was the indirect cause of Rúnar's death. Lacking the resources to prosecute Haraldur for defrauding him but still seeking some kind of justice, he had the idea of transferring his ownership of the shares in the old alcopop company to Mikhail Moisejevitsj Levítan, in the knowledge that Mikhail would not fail to do what was necessary to win for himself the billions owed to Magnús. Mikhail had, however, gone further than Magnús had reckoned on.