Gallows Rock by Yrsa Sigurdardottir, translated by Victoria Cribb #bookreview #series #translatedbook

I purchased this book for my own personal collection.

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Published: May 28, 2020

 

Summary:

On a jagged, bleak lava field just outside Reykjavik stands the Gallows Rock. Once a place of execution, it is now a tourist attraction. Until this morning, when a man was found hanging from it…

The nail embedded in his chest proves it wasn’t suicide. But when the police go to his flat, a further puzzle awaits: a four-year-old boy has been left there. He doesn’t seem to have any link with the victim, his parents cannot be found, and his drawings show he witnessed something terrible.

As detective Huldar hunts the killer, and child psychologist Freyja looks for the boy’s parents, the mystery unfolds: a story of violence, entitlement, and revenge.

 

My thoughts:

This is the fourth book in Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s Children’s House series and I have been a big fan of this series. I’m not sure why only the first three books of the series were published in the US, but I didn’t let that stop me from continuing on…I just purchased the English versions from good ol’ Book Depository! And I am finally getting around to reading them! This is one of the series I am determined to finish up this year and unlike last year with Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series, I only have the 3 books to read, this one and two more.

While these books can be read as stand-alones as the cases are all self-contained to each individual book, I do find the character development of Huldar and Freya to be a major draw to this series and isn’t that why we read series? Plus, I will say that this one in particular involves a storyline about a side character and I really hope it continues in the next book…the build-up and the way it was left off at the end of the book can’t be the end of it – we need more than that!

This was one dark, complex case that brought Huldar and Freya together, but also found them working separately quite a bit. The twists and turns the case took really kept me puzzled as I tried to work out the connection between the murdered man and the little boy. I really had no idea where this one was going and I loved that. For as much as I read in this genre, it’s hard to surprise me completely.

I’m looking forward to reading the next two books in this series and I think I will do what I did with the Harry Hole series and read one a month. That will give me something to look forward to…especially as this one did end with a bit of that cliffhanger that I mentioned in term of the character development and I’m so curious to see if it plays out in the next book. Guess we’ll see next month!

 

Books in this series:

1. The Legacy
2. The Reckoning
3. The Absolution
4. Gallows Rock
5. The Doll
6. The Fallout