Hryðjuverkamaður snýr heim

The flashbacks in the novel gradually reveal that Valur, Rútur and one Steinbjörn Eyjólfsson were friends together in Breiðholt and involved in minor criminal activity portrayed as characteristic of this rough suburb.

The culmination of the radical activism of Valur, Rútur and Steinbjörn is a stunt whereby they photobomb the October 1986 Reykjavík Summit, raising a banner saying 'Destroy the fascist Soviet states of America!

Valur is shot and slightly wounded by a secret service agent and arrested, while a stray bullet hits another bodyguard in the eye.

Valur escapes prosecution, however, by fleeing on his brother's passport to the East German part of Berlin, where the state later gives him a new identity, as Magnus Heinz.

He follows Kolbrá on what turns out to be a break-in ordered by Krummi during which she steals a package from an Icelandic finance company called AUR Investment.

Meanwhile, Rútur and Steinbjörn follow up on a long-neglected promise to try to get Valur's charges dropped, and the reader becomes aware that they have some connection with Krummi's criminal activities.

The same day, Rútur's wife Hildur holds an extravagant and highly public fortieth birthday party for her reluctant husband.

As they do so, Geir Haarde makes his famous Guð blessi Ísland speech, signalling the imminent collapse of Iceland's financial system.