Free The Puffin of Death by Betty Webb

because some clever artist had painted it to look like a filled bookshelf, but when Bryndis pushed against a book titled Landnámabók , it swung open. Inside a room the size of an American closet sat a young woman staring into a computer screen with a cross expression on her face. Small, fine-featured, with harlequin glasses perched on a tiny nose, with her light brown hair shorn in a pixie cut, she looked like a cranky elf. Upon seeing us, the elf pushed her chair away from her child-sized desk and greeted Bryndis with a broad smile and a rush of Icelandic.
    When Bryndis introduced me, Krista immediately switched to English. “An American zookeeper! I got my MFA at Georgetown University, and while there, I visited the National Zoo to see the pandas. Does the Gunn Zoo have pandas?”
    We talked animals for a few minutes—sorry, the Gunn Zoo had no pandas—before Bryndis got around to delivering the bad news about Elizabeth St. John.
    Krista’s reaction was unexpected. “It is kind of you to warn me like this, but I have already heard about the unfortunate occurrence at Vik. No problem. Not for us, anyway. Elizabeth called this afternoon to assure me that her signing was still on.”
    â€œStill on?!” I squeaked.
    â€œA strong woman, that one.” Krista’s voice was filled with admiration. “Just like her heroine Jade L’Amour. Yes, she is sad, of course, and yes, she cried a little as we spoke, but she said that—how did she put it?—oh, that the show must go on, that she had made her promise to us and her readers, and despite her personal misfortune, she will honor it.”
    Honor. Where had I heard that word earlier? Then I remembered. In the restroom at Vik, Dawn Talley had described the argument between her husband and the dead man over their birding organization’s vote as being a matter of “honor.” Briefly, I wondered if I should inform Inspector Haraldsson, then decided not to. Let the grump solve his own crimes.
    Krista was still talking. “It is a terrible thing to say, but all the publicity will help the signing. I have been worried about it, but now everyone will come to see the woman whose husband has been murdered.”
    â€œBut will they buy books?” Bryndis asked.
    Krista’s grin didn’t diminish. “I will make them feel like murderers themselves if they don’t.”
    Krista’s expertise as a saleswoman became apparent when she insisted on showing me around the shop. Without sounding the least bit pushy, she managed to talk me into buying five books: four coffee table books featuring the scenic wonders of Iceland, and the fifth, an anthology of Icelandic sagas.
    â€œYou will especially love Njál’s Saga , which has so many killings in it that even our historians sometimes lose count,” she said, swiping the Gunn Zoo’s Visa through the card reader.
    Books are heavy. Especially coffee table books and anthologies. Fortunately, my going-away present from my mother had been a Coach Studio Legacy handbag that doubled as a backpack, so I slung my haul over my shoulder and set off with Bryndis again, slumping only slightly. Fortunately, the rest of the walk to the harbor was downhill.
    â€œSorry about that,” Bryndis said, as we trudged along. She, too, had been cajoled into buying several books, but unlike me, she’d purchased lightweight paperbacks. “I should have warned you about Krista,” she said, with a rueful smile.
    Ten minutes later we arrived at Reykjavik’s famed concert hall. A modern glass and steel building jutting out over the water of Reykjavik Bay, Harpa’s irregular colored panels, each a different shape and size, mimicked the translucent effect of stained glass windows. At night, Bryndis explained, the building provided an extraordinary light show as the colors flashed on and off, twinkling like a million stars going nova in a synergetic ballet. By