Халлгримур Хельгасон - The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

“I didn’t.” I manage to say before I collapse on the floor. “I didn’t kill them.”

They rush to my rescue. Olie’s small golden earring flicks above me like a halo thrown at me from a thousand feet. Torture gets all red in the face, turning his glasses into two half moons. Gunnhildur’s bright face hovers over me like a large sun over a troubled land. She says something, but I can’t hear it. And then more faces appear. Hanna, Harpa, Sickreader… And they all say something, but I can’t hear it for the room is filled with music. I don’t recognize the song, but I can make out some of the words.

“Al Bogu ne mogu…”

“What’s the song?” I manage to whisper.

“It’s the winning song. From Serbia. Serbia’s the winner,” Gunnhildur says.

“Oh? They won? Good for them.” I say.

Then I’m not sure what happens.

Hallgrimur Helgason began as an artist, showing his work in galleries in New York and Paris. He made his debut as a novelist in 1990 and gained international attention with his third novel, 101 Reykjavik , with praise including an apt description by novelist/critic Tim Sandlin: “Imagine if Henry Miller had written Tropic of Cancer on crack instead of wine.” It was subsequently made into a film starring Victoria Abril. In 2001 he received the Icelandic Literary Prize for The Author of Iceland and has twice been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize: first with 101 Reykjavik in 1999 and then Stormland in 2007. A film based on the latter was released in early 2011. The Hitman’s Guide to Housecleaning is his only novel written in English. The author’s own translation was published in Iceland in 2008 and became a bestseller in Germany in 2010. A father of three, Hallgrimur divides his time between Reykjavik and Hrísey Island.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Text copyright © 2008 by Hallgrimur Helgason

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

First published by AmazonCrossing in 2012.

Published by AmazonCrossing

P.O. Box 400818

Las Vegas, NV 89140

ISBN: 978-1-61109-139-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011913741