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A review by jdglasgow
Gallows Rock by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
3.0
I began reading the “Children’s House” series by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir shortly after I got back into reading. I had convinced myself early on that the genre for me was mystery and that I was looking primarily for a series of books. From Googling lists of mystery series, I was led to this one and, well, it was okay. At least okay enough for me to read the next two in the series, which were all that my local library had. Recently, though, I started thinking about coming back and reading the next book and thought I’d utilize the magical Inter-Library Loan service to make it happen. Strangely, the book wasn’t available through the ILL but I later learned that my county library system had it on their shelves, so I didn’t need to use the ILL at all! This is a fascinating story, I know.
Anyway, as it turns out police procedurals is not the genre for me, which I guess I should have known because I definitely have strong ACAB views. When I was thinking that mystery was my genre, I was imagining something more in the vein of Encyclopedia Brown but for adults, something which is more like a game where you the reader can pick up clues and solve the riddle of the whodunit yourself. I wasn’t thinking of just following cops confused by a series of grisly murders until some deus ex machina falls into place allowing them to identify the culprit. Because this isn’t a genre I have much experience with, I can’t say for certain but my suspicion is that this series is a fairly unexceptional example.
The draw of the books, I guess, given the title of the series, is the way it incorporates child psychology into its stories. The two main characters are good cop Huldar and child psychologist Freyja, and each book manages to pair the two together. Their relationship has an unhealthy balance of friction and chemistry, but I assume before the series ends they’ll be officially a couple. In this particular book, the child which necessitates Freyja’s involvement feels a little shoehorned into the plot. He doesn’t add much to the story and in fact Freyja herself feels kind of sidelined in this one.
Also, the first in the series was somewhat shocking to me in that it tracked a horrific, Saw-like series of murders, each described until the moment of death from the victim’s point of view. It was pretty intense! The books since then have scaled back that intensity quite a bit. Here, there’s really only one murder until the book is nearly over and a lot of the police work done in conjunction with the investigation doesn’t really feel geared toward solving the murder at all, so much as just going down any rabbit hole that presents itself. I thought I had pegged the culprit from early on, though I could not imagine what their motive might be. I turned out to be wrong, but the correct answer is not especially satisfying and is certainly nothing the reader could get to on their own. There’s also a twist in the epilogue; I wrote praise about an epilogue twist in an earlier entry in the “Children’s House” series, but this one… maybe it was because I had already kind of made up my mind about the book, but what was supposed to be a shocking reveal didn’t impress me much.
Which is not to say that I disliked the book. I wrote in my review of the previous one that the series is a bit of a “comfort read” for me, in that it’s consistent in quality albeit not reaching for anything especially poignant or subversive. I feel the same, finishing this one. It was all… alright. I do enjoy the characters. I enjoy Huldar and Freyja, Freyja’s surly niece Saga, I’m growing to like Huldar’s chief Erla, and eager, policy-oriented new recruit Lína is a fun addition to the cast of characters. The list of suspects, all of whom have something to hide which may or may not relate to the central crime also does add some tension and intrigue to the investigation, although it’s hard not to see the cryptic admissions about their attempts to hide something as anything but a delaying tactic after the fact.
I don’t feel like I have a lot to say about the bulk of the book. I took no notes; there were no quotes I felt needed sharing. It is what it is. That’s fine. I’m four books into a total of six; I’ll probably finish the series. Maybe not anytime soon, but certainly eventually. Why not?
Anyway, as it turns out police procedurals is not the genre for me, which I guess I should have known because I definitely have strong ACAB views. When I was thinking that mystery was my genre, I was imagining something more in the vein of Encyclopedia Brown but for adults, something which is more like a game where you the reader can pick up clues and solve the riddle of the whodunit yourself. I wasn’t thinking of just following cops confused by a series of grisly murders until some deus ex machina falls into place allowing them to identify the culprit. Because this isn’t a genre I have much experience with, I can’t say for certain but my suspicion is that this series is a fairly unexceptional example.
The draw of the books, I guess, given the title of the series, is the way it incorporates child psychology into its stories. The two main characters are good cop Huldar and child psychologist Freyja, and each book manages to pair the two together. Their relationship has an unhealthy balance of friction and chemistry, but I assume before the series ends they’ll be officially a couple. In this particular book, the child which necessitates Freyja’s involvement feels a little shoehorned into the plot. He doesn’t add much to the story and in fact Freyja herself feels kind of sidelined in this one.
Also, the first in the series was somewhat shocking to me in that it tracked a horrific, Saw-like series of murders, each described until the moment of death from the victim’s point of view. It was pretty intense! The books since then have scaled back that intensity quite a bit. Here, there’s really only one murder until the book is nearly over and a lot of the police work done in conjunction with the investigation doesn’t really feel geared toward solving the murder at all, so much as just going down any rabbit hole that presents itself. I thought I had pegged the culprit from early on, though I could not imagine what their motive might be. I turned out to be wrong, but the correct answer is not especially satisfying and is certainly nothing the reader could get to on their own. There’s also a twist in the epilogue; I wrote praise about an epilogue twist in an earlier entry in the “Children’s House” series, but this one… maybe it was because I had already kind of made up my mind about the book, but what was supposed to be a shocking reveal didn’t impress me much.
Which is not to say that I disliked the book. I wrote in my review of the previous one that the series is a bit of a “comfort read” for me, in that it’s consistent in quality albeit not reaching for anything especially poignant or subversive. I feel the same, finishing this one. It was all… alright. I do enjoy the characters. I enjoy Huldar and Freyja, Freyja’s surly niece Saga, I’m growing to like Huldar’s chief Erla, and eager, policy-oriented new recruit Lína is a fun addition to the cast of characters. The list of suspects, all of whom have something to hide which may or may not relate to the central crime also does add some tension and intrigue to the investigation, although it’s hard not to see the cryptic admissions about their attempts to hide something as anything but a delaying tactic after the fact.
I don’t feel like I have a lot to say about the bulk of the book. I took no notes; there were no quotes I felt needed sharing. It is what it is. That’s fine. I’m four books into a total of six; I’ll probably finish the series. Maybe not anytime soon, but certainly eventually. Why not?