The Reckoning
A Thriller
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4.4 • 69 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Reckoning is the stunning follow-up to The Legacy, which was the start of a thrilling new series that Booklist (starred) recommends for fans of Tana French.
Vaka sits, regretting her choice of coat, on the cold steps of her new school. Her father appears to have forgotten to pick her up, her mother has forgotten to give her this week’s pocket money, and the school is already locked for the day. Grownups, she decides, are useless.
With no way to call home, she resigns herself to waiting on the steps until her father remembers her. When a girl approaches, Vaka recognizes her immediately from class, and from her unusual appearance: two of her fingers are missing. The girl lives at the back of the school, on the other side of a high fence, and Vaka asks to call her father from the girl's house. That afternoon is the last time anyone sees Vaka.
Detective Huldar and child psychologist Freyja are called in. Soon, they find themselves at the heart of another shocking case.
From the international number one-bestselling author of The Silence of the Sea, winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel Yrsa Sigurdardottir returns with the follow-up to The Legacy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sigurdard ttir just keeps getting better and better, as shown by this second entry in the trilogy that began with 2018's The Legacy. In 2016, hunky demoted Reykjav k detective Huldar consults Freyja, a child psychologist with whom he worked on a previous case, about a 10-year-old unsigned letter left in a time capsule by an unknown high school student predicting six murders in 2016. The victims are indicated only by initials. Soon chopped up body parts start turning up, and Huldar and Freyja uncover disturbing information that links these murders to old crimes that sparked the letter. Sigurdard ttir effortlessly blends police procedure and politics with gleeful jabs at inane human frailties, like Huldar's ill-advised drunken one-night stand with his foulmouthed female boss. She also categorically indicts a governmental system whose minions refuse to believe children who cry out for help in unimaginably sadistic family situations. The spiky romantic tension between Huldar and Freyja, who's furious with him because he once slept with her under false pretenses, provides relief from the grim story line. This is must-reading for Scandinavian crime fans.
