Ballsy Freyja and shaggy Huldar, memorably introduced in The Legacy, are back with a second super-convoluted case even though their first collaboration (in and out of bed) ended so badly. The fact the child psychologist and cop have both been demoted doesn’t stop them going after those who place desire before decency.
This time their paths cross when a schoolkid’s letter found in an unearthed time capsule predicts “K, S, BT, JJ, OV and I” will die in 2016. Sure enough, a pair of severed hands are soon found marinating in a hot-tub.
Huldar, desperate to patch things up with Freyja, wonders: “Strange how people were so drawn to horror and misfortune.” Once again, Iceland is shown to be a virtually closed community in which atrocities often go unreported or unpunished.
The grimness, however, is offset by a sardonic humour: even a baby, said by Freyja to never smile, lets out “a crow of laughter from the pushchair when a man slipped and fell on his backside right in front of them”.
Procedurals suit Sigur∂adóttir: her series of thrillers featuring the ace cook and lawyer Thóra Gudmunsdóttir are far tighter than such standalones as Why Did You Lie? There’s no waffle in The Reckoning: it is brutal, baroque and ends with a brilliant last-minute twist.
The Reckoning by Yrsa Sigur∂ardóttir (Hodder, £16.99), buy it here.
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