There’s a reason Yrsa Sigurðardóttir is the Queen of Icelandic Noir. She loves to go dark and her books always feel contemporary amidst the Icelandic gloom . The Absolution is the third in her Children’s House series, though this book, like the others, can easily be read as a stand-alone. Our protagonists, Freyja, a child psychologist and Huldur , a policeman, are still doing an uneasy dance around each other, following the less than perfect end to their one night stand some time ago. This time, Freyja is called in by Huldur after a teenager is abducted in a terrifying manner from the cinema in which she works part time. We know this because all of her friends have received Snapchat videos of the attack and each is more disturbing than the last. What’s worse is that it is soon clear that Stella is not the only child who will be brutally attacked by this killer. Huldar and Erla, his boss, are still at daggers drawn and so when Huldar is assigned the case he brings in child psychiatrist Freyja to help interview the teenagers. Sigurðardóttir beautifully sets the dark and chilling scene as self-absorbed Stella goes from popular teen to murdered child. In a nicely complex and beautifully layered plot, she considers the use of social media as a weapon to isolate and intimidate. Some of this is especially horrible, and gives us a glimpse into what contemporary bullying must feel like to a child. This is a harrowing and difficult subject and Sigurðardóttir plays it just right to elicit our growing unease and eventual horror as we find out the true extent of what has been happening. The theme of bullying continues into the Police team. With Huldar out of favour with Erla, he’s getting the crap jobs and his poor partner, Gudlaugar is left to make what he can of their assignments. Even the Police are not immune from poor social behaviour, it seems. As the team investigates, Freya also does some digging of her own and soon there are more potential suspects than you can shake a stick at. Sigurðardóttir cleverly plays with the reader’s expectations and it is some time before we understand the real motivation behind these murders. Just as we do so, she pulls the rug out from under us to create a heart-stopping finale. Verdict: With her trademark skills of building a dark and creepy tension filled adrenalin ride, Yrsa Sigurðardóttir has written another truly immersive and engrossing read.

Another very good Freya and Huldar story. Thrilling and scary with an important subject at its heart.