Jón Atli Jónasson is a new name among the crime writers from Iceland appearing in translation, and his English-language debut Broken definitely pushes this genre in a new direction.

The pair of two cops who probably shouldn’t be on the force, let alone working together, isn’t a new idea, but the supremely damaged Dóra and second-generation immigrant Rado as the cop duo is brilliantly done. They fit together, but at the same time they don’t. Then there’s the cast of characters Jón Atli has woven into this story who give it such bright colours. There’s chain-smoking Elliði, Dóra’s boss and former patrol partner who was present when she was so badly injured, and the cast of other cops who don’t hide their suspicion and dislike of the foreign guy in their ranks.

Rado’s family and his shady in-laws, also immigrants, are sharply drawn, highlighting the rootlessness and the conflictedness of people finding a foothold in a new, strange country, and how their children cope (or fail to cope) with this double identity. It doesn’t help that in this new home they’ve rebuilt the criminal empire they were forced to abandon back in the old country… Jón Atli shows us an Iceland that’s so far removed from the version visitors see that it’s barely recognisable, but at the same time scarily familiar.

Then the criminals, both the old-school homegrown variety with their clunky methods, and a new generation of villains who don’t sample their own merchandise and look up to business figure, seeing themselves as entrepreneurs who have the unfortunate disadvantage of operating on the wrong side of the law. And then there’s the sinister and mysterious Groke, the consummate professional who takes no prisoners, and who comes with a backstory of his own that hits so painfully close to home.

Jón Atli Jónasson is an acclaimed screenwriter and playwright. Broken is his first novel to appear in English, translated by Quentin Bates and published by Corylus Books. A TV adaptation is already in the works, and shooting is scheduled to start next year.

Here’s a short sample of Jón Atli Jónasson’s writing:

The fishing lodge couldn’t be seen from the road, and hardly even from the rutted track that led down to it. If he hadn’t got the jeep stuck in the soft ground then he wouldn’t be standing here in a pair of rubber boots and a shovel in his hands, trying to fill in the deep tyre tracks. It was as well there was nobody about. There was a farmhouse on the far side of the ravine, but he was fairly sure it had been long abandoned.

Shovelling was tiring, but he didn’t mind that. The cool air was invigorating. It was April and the snow was melting, freeing water to stream down from the highlands. It was difficult to see where the meltwater was going, until you put a foot on the ground and the gravel gave way into the slush beneath. This aroused his interest more than anything else. It didn’t trouble the Groke in the least. He had never seen any point in letting himself be angered by nature or its laws. In fact, he lived closer to nature than most people – close to the border with death and decomposition. He was a ferryman of a kind, leading all sorts of people, understandably not always willing, to that border and across it.

The two corpses he had conscientiously buried behind the fishing lodge were prime examples. This couple lived in Reykjavík, in one of the new districts that had sprouted up over the last decade. In these sprawling, soulless boxes where vast flat screens cast their blue glare on the walls and the big picture windows. The couple had stolen money. This was an amount that would have been worth negotiating, if only they’d showed a little inclination. But they hadn’t. They thought they would get away with it. They hadn’t realised that this was too much money to simply shrug off. Their attitude had been such that threats, beatings and even torture hadn’t done the trick. Some people had to have their hands held to the border between life and death, while others failed to understand that their own behaviour brought the border to them. Their deaths would serve as a warning to others. He knew that wasn’t true. Man as a species is too cross-grained for that to be the case.

Neither of them had been able to say a word before they died. The man had been coming out of the bathroom. The Groke sank the needle deep into his neck, and he sank down against the wall of this house that looked as if it had been cut from the pages of a piece of property porn. They had great taste, which perhaps was the reason for their downfall. In the end it had all been too costly, all the beautiful art on the walls, the expensive furniture and wardrobes crammed with designer goods.

Just moments after the man slipped to the floor, his wife parked her new electric car in front of the house and wondered who owned the jeep with tinted windows standing in the drive, and which she didn’t recall having seen before. She went indoors, called out, but didn’t get a response.

The Groke waited patiently in the corridor upstairs. He heard her potter around the kitchen, putting groceries away and calling her husband. The low hum from the man’s phone carried from the bedroom. He eventually heard her come up the stairs. When she appeared in the corridor and saw her husband lying there, she was about to scream. But the blow he gave her to the solar plexus punched all the breath out of her. He didn’t like this. It felt amateurish. But there was no other option. Then he grabbed her by the back of the neck and sank the needle deep into it. A few seconds later she lay on the floor beside her husband. If anyone were to wonder about them, then border control would inform them that the couple had left the country on a charter flight to Portugal. Their social media accounts had been hacked into. There would be a few pictures posted of landscapes and Southern European cuisine before their trails would disappear for good.

The Groke descended the stairs and went into the kitchen, where he opened the fridge and checked out the contents. The same luxury was on offer there. He glanced at the clock, and sent a Signal message from his phone. 2-0.