The Reckoning: A Thriller

by Yrsa Sigurdardottir Narrated by Lucy Paterson

Overview

"With a remarkable ability to subtly distinguish myriad characters, Lucy Patterson masterfully narrates this thriller...Her timing and delivery, including subtle pauses and sighs, are transfixing." - AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

From Yrsa Sigurdardottir, author of the international bestselling thriller The Silence of the Sea, winner of the 2015 Petrona Award for Best Scandinavian Crime Novel, comes the follow-up to The Legacy.

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.

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2019 - AudioFile

With a remarkable ability to subtly distinguish myriad characters, Lucy Patterson masterfully narrates this thriller, the second featuring Detective Huldar and child psychologist Freyja. Ten years ago, a child wrote a series of initials on a letter for a school time capsule. Somehow, those letters are tied to a series of grisly murders. In a crisp British accent, Patterson handles the Icelandic names with ease. Listeners new to the trilogy will quickly find themselves immersed in the lives of the characters revolving around the mystery. Patterson excels at the interrogation scenes, moving seamlessly between the questioner and the questioned. Her timing and delivery, including subtle pauses and sighes, are transfixing. The story is grim, however, with harrowing glimpses of cruelty and violence toward children. A.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

★ 12/03/2018
Sigurdardóttir 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 Reykjavík 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. Sigurdardóttir 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. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

"Sigurdardottir just keeps getting better and better. This is must-reading for Scandinavian crime fans."—Publishers Weekly (Starred and Boxed)

"Sigurdardottir offsets sharp procedural elements and gruesome crimes with masterful character development and social commentary, creating a riveting, affecting thriller."—Booklist

"Nordic crime fiction continues to be perennially popular and first-rate, with good reason. Case in point: The Reckoning. The Reckoning is dark, grave, and graphic—but also gripping and compassionate"—The Seattle Times

"[A] chilling page-turner."—National Examiner

Praise for The Legacy:

"[A] relentlessly paced series launch...Few readers will be able to put down this powerful tale of revenge."—Publishers Weekly (starred) on The Legacy

"A complex, character-driven procedural, powerfully rooted in buried secrets of childhood trauma. Recommended for fans of Tana French and Camilla Lackberg."—Booklist (starred) on The Legacy

"Brilliant . . . her best novel to date."—The Globe and Mail on The Legacy

"The Legacy is the start of an exciting new direction for Yrsa Sigurdardottir. The horror of a decades-old family separation provides the catalyst for dark crimes and a complex investigation."—Sarah Ward, author of In Bitter Chill

"We have always been able to rely on Yrsa Sigurdardóttir for a good story well told, and The Legacy is no exception. A strong sense of place, interesting characters and a chilling plot make The Legacy a novel to savor."—Peter Robinson

"If you like your crime fiction dark and engaging, look no further. A cracking start to a new series by Yrsa Sigurdardottir."—Mari Hannah on The Legacy

"Yrsa remains the queen of Icelandic thriller writers."—Guardian on The Legacy

MARCH 2019 - AudioFile

With a remarkable ability to subtly distinguish myriad characters, Lucy Patterson masterfully narrates this thriller, the second featuring Detective Huldar and child psychologist Freyja. Ten years ago, a child wrote a series of initials on a letter for a school time capsule. Somehow, those letters are tied to a series of grisly murders. In a crisp British accent, Patterson handles the Icelandic names with ease. Listeners new to the trilogy will quickly find themselves immersed in the lives of the characters revolving around the mystery. Patterson excels at the interrogation scenes, moving seamlessly between the questioner and the questioned. Her timing and delivery, including subtle pauses and sighes, are transfixing. The story is grim, however, with harrowing glimpses of cruelty and violence toward children. A.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2018-10-15

Twelve years after the rape and murder of an 8-year-old schoolgirl, a new series of murders blossoms in her memory in Sigurdardóttir's latest horrific police nightmare.

Since Iceland doesn't imprison convicted criminals for life, Jón Jónsson is released after serving his time for having assaulted and smothered Vaka Orradóttir, who was in his house because she'd asked her classmate, Jónsson's daughter, Sigrún, if she could use her home phone to call her father when he was late picking her up from school. Within a week, storm clouds are already converging over the demoted CID department manager Huldar from several directions. There's the discovery of two severed hands in retired prosecutor Benedikt Toft's hot tub. There's a note discovered in a time capsule Vaka's schoolmates buried 12 years ago: "in 2016 the following people are going to die: K, S, BT, JJ, OV, and I." There's a series of present-tense threats prosecutor Thorvaldur Svavarsson receives from [e-mail]. And there's the murder of Benedikt Toft—could he be the BT that menacing prediction specified?—in a municipal parking garage. Although Huldar's been replaced as head of the CID and has precious little influence in the department anymore, he's itching to work the case, and eventually he gets his wish, only to face the challenge of establishing that the case is indeed a case and not a cascade of unfortunate but unrelated events. Veterans of Sigurdardóttir's peerlessly grim procedurals (The Legacy, 2018, etc.) 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."

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172068799
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	02/12/2019
Series:	Children's House , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos