THE UNDESIRED By Yrsa Sigurdardottir Hodder & Stoughton, 400 pages, $22.90

A young Icelandic bureaucrat is assigned to draw a report on the mysterious murders four decades earlier of two boys held in a state institute for wayward kids.

The investigation is twisted, not a little creepy and hampered by ugly episodes in the bureaucrat’s own life.

Above all in understanding the plot’s unfolding, it becomes essential to keep in mind Iceland’s small size (population: 325,000).

“Almost everyone’s connected somehow,” one character says ominously.