He flees and seeks refuge with his hosts' daughter Gunnhildur, who dislikes her parents' religiosity and is pleased to harbour a criminal.
The two decide to take him in, wrap him in bandages, and get their friend Þorður, a preacher, to purge Toxic's soul through a programme of bodily mortification and spiritual reflection.
Guðmundur uses his underworld and political connections to get Toxic an Icelandic identity as Tómas Leifur Ólafsson, a job, and a room in an illegal boarding-house for East European immigrant workers.
While watching the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 with Gunnhildur, her parents and their friends, Toxic (now Tómas) receives a visit from his old mafia colleagues Niko and Radovan.
Toxic refers to a contender for his girlfriend’s affections, an Italian mafioso, as “the Talian Mobthrob.” In another passage, he describes the late-setting sun: “At 10:33 the sun is still burning on the horizon like an orange lantern at an outdoor Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn.” The descriptions don’t always hit their mark—there are a few too many laboriously detailed passages about female anatomy, and sometimes the imagery borders on overwrought (“The Balkan animal, which is my soul, is always hungry for prey”), but overall, the prose and dialogue is fresh and expansive.
[4]Toxic comments several times on the limitations of his English, which provides a framework for reading unidiomatic moments in the novel as mimetic of real life.
1 in Thrillers, only two weeks after publications, and has earned over 450 readers' reviews on the bookselling web, the highest score of any Icelandic book.
Hallgrimur Helgason's brain is like this amazing app that morphs the English language into gorgeously blunt new forms.