In einer kalten Herbstnacht wird eine Frau erhängt in ihrem Sommerhäuschen am See Thingvellir gefunden. Zunächst scheint es ein klarer Fall von Selbstmord zu sein: Die Tote, Maria, ist nie über den Tod ihrer Mutter vor zwei Jahren hinweggekommen. Doch als Erlendur von Karen, einer Freundin von Maria, ein Band erhält, auf dem eine Séance aufgezeichnet ist, die Maria vor ihrem Tod besucht hatte, ist seine Neugier geweckt. Er beginnt privat zu ermitteln.
One cold autumn night, a woman is found hanging from a beam at her holiday cottage. At first sight, it appears like a straightforward case of suicide; María had never recovered from the death of her mother two years previously and she had a history of depression. But then the friend who found her body approaches Detective Erlendur with a tape of a séance that María attended before her death and his curiosity is aroused.
Driven by a need to find answers, Erlendur begins an unofficial investigation into María's death. But he is also haunted by another unsolved mystery - the disappearance of two young people thirty years ago - and by his own quest to find the body of his brother, who died in a blizzard when he was a boy. Hypothermia is Indridason's most compelling novel yet.
