Another 4 star read for me. Possibly slightly on the lower end of a four than the previous two books, but still really really good!
I enjoyed this third instalment in the Huldar and Freyja, Children’s house series. It focused around bullying and the social media platform Snapchat. I’ve never had anything to do with Snapchat, I think it is for the cool kids!? 🙂 But what I gather, from this book, and the dudes in my family, is that you can send pictures to people you know, that disappear once they have been seen. This plays in well for a serial killer who wants to torment his victims friends and family by showcasing their brutal deaths.
Huldar is having trouble with the boss, Erla, in an arc that has been rumbling on since book one. (If I had to find a fault with this book, this would be one – it feels like it is just dragging on a bit and that the tension between the two should be over really). After a Snap is sent showing the death of a young girl in a cinema he pleads to be able to help on the case. He is blocked and sent packing.
He’s not catching any good cases and is being sent to do menial tasks that a lower rank officer could do in his sleep. When Huldar and his partner are sent to a routine domestic disturbance involving a locked-out cleaner, they stumble across blood- a lot of blood, and the case blows wide open, finally giving Huldar his entry into the investigation.
What follows is the chase to find this killer before he can harm any more young people. Will Huldar be able to stop him in time?
I liked this one, the premise was unusual – using Snapchat as a major plot tool. I’ve not seen it before. I liked getting to see more of Huldar’s partner and their dynamic as a team, now that he is out of his shell a little more. I was disappointed that Freyja and Huldar weren’t in more scenes together – they seemed to each do their own investigations and never really join up, which is kind of the point of the series?!
The Icelandic atmosphere – cold, desolate, eerie – it was there, and it was paramount to this story, 100%. I could not imagine this story being set anywhere else.
If you enjoy slow burning thrillers, Scandinavian crime fiction, slightly rough edged cops with a damaged soul, this one is for you. It’s gruesome and graphic and you will want to keep turning the pages. Definitely a recommendation, but I would also read the first two in the series so that you know where you are with the characters.
Happy reading
Becca x
The Beautiful Book Break 