Yrsa Sigurdardóttir is the current queen of Icelandic crime fiction, with a number of books to her credit. The Legacy is the first book in a projected new "Children's House" series that will explore the unlikely partnership of Freyja, a psychologist who works with severely traumatized children, and newly promoted homicide detective Huldar.
Freyja and Huldar must (reluctantly) work together on a particularly horrific series of murders because the only witness they have is a seven-year-old girl who was hiding under the bed in the room when her mother was killed. Freyja dislikes the police in general and Huldar in particular, but has to cooperate in order to protect little Magrét from the intense pressure of the investigation.
Meanwhile, Karl, a lonely young man living in his deceased mother's house, is getting strange numerically-coded messages on short wave radio that seem to be aimed specifically at him. It takes a long time for Karl to figure out the key to the numbers and decode them, but the cryptic messages that result only frighten and confuse him further.
The only thing that is certain is that the killer, whoever he is, holds a violent grudge against his victims, yet they seem to be chosen at random. If he can only discover what connects the victims, Huldar is certain he could identify the killer. But will he make the connection before the killer strikes again?
Nordic Noir to rival the darkest and most tangled tales of the Icelandic sagas.
Click HERE to read the * review from Publisher's Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from the Criminal Element blog.
Click HERE to read the review from theartsdesk.com.
