The war in Europe finds its way to Iceland with a Nazi invasion in the spring of 1940. Apart from the town drunks who make a ruckus at the harbour, most people adapt quietly to the New Order, profits are made and local Fascists march in the streets. Sigurdur Jonasson, a young employee of the Telephone Company in Reykjavik, despairs of any sort of resistance appearing and his previously militant Marxist girlfriend has withdrawn into depression.
But what do the Nazis really want in Iceland? And what are some of their foremost scientists doing in the highlands? When Hitler’s friendship with Stalin dissolves in the East and there are indications of an approaching conflict with the American forces in Greenland, Sigurdur and his friends head into the desolate interior to find and destroy a possible Nazi superweapon that may well determine the outcome of the war.
The Eagle and the Falcon is the first work of alternative fiction to come out in Iceland.
Gunnarsson studied alternative history at the University of Iceland under the guidance of Gudni Th. Johannesson, who abandoned his post to become President of Iceland in 2016. The novel is inspired by other works in the genre, including Fatherland by Robert Harris, Making History by Stephen Fry, The Plot Against America by Philip Roth and The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (also a TV series).