Nordic crime fiction continues to be perennially popular and first-rate, with good reason. Case in point: The Reckoning ... complex, nuanced ... The banter between Huldar and Freyja, who share a messy romantic past, balances the book’s gravity with humor. That said, this book is not for the faint of heart: The Reckoning is dark, grave and graphic — but also gripping and compassionate.
Sigurdardóttir offsets sharp procedural elements and gruesome crimes with masterful character development and social commentary, creating a riveting, affecting thriller.
It has everything you want in a police procedural: strong, memorable characters, a puzzling mystery and bizarre murders, all served up perfectly ... The Reckoning makes for addicting reading. The believable odd-couple matchup of Huldar and Freyja is neither cloying nor precious, a fine line for an author to walk and one that Sigurdardottir does very well. The mortar of the book, though, is the mystery, with its seeds in the past and gruesome blossoming in the present. There is some grim humor presented to counterpoint the nastiness of the crimes committed, with both elements well-paced and harrowing right up to the final pages.
Picking up where her 2018 release The Legacy left off, Sigurdardottir’s newest crime novel delivers a gritty, layered procedural exploring the longstanding implications of childhood trauma ... Living up to her work’s well-earned reputation as crime fiction that borders on horror, Sigurdardottir’s The Reckoning is guaranteed to give you goosebumps. In a story both gruesome and heart-wrenching, Sigurdardottir weaves a masterful mystery that belongs on the bookshelf of every Scandinavian crime fiction reader ... At the heart of any great crime novel is strong plotting and rich character development, and readers can expect both from The Reckoning ... [Sigurdardottir's] books consistently deliver some of the darkest and most compelling stories of the Nordic Noir genre, and I am already eagerly anticipating the next book in this outstanding series.
Sigurdardóttir handles myriad plot threads, time lines, and characters with confidence, energy, and just a touch of cynical humor in this police procedural, book two in a trilogy. Recommended.
Veterans of Sigurdardóttir’s peerlessly grim procedurals...will share the hero’s irrational conviction that all these dire portents are indeed related, and it’s not giving too much away to say that they’ll be proved shockingly correct. More evidence of the author’s gift for establishing a web so dark and deep-laid that it hardly matters which particular spider wove it. You’re left agog at the detective’s concluding observation: 'Sometimes violent instincts had to be given their head.'
Sigurdardóttir just keeps getting better and better ... 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.
