Harley Quinn: Reckoning is a young adult novel by Rebecca Allen, published in 2022. It is part of the DC Icons series, and the first in a projected trilogy recounting the origin of Harley Quinn.
Harleen Quinzel is interning in a psych lab at Gotham University and waiting to hear if she's got the scholarship that will make it possible for her to study full-time. She inadvertently founds a girl gang, the Reckoning, who target revealing pranks at misogynist professors and students. Things turn serious when they set their sights on discovering the identity of a faculty member who has been preying on female students — who, it seems, is willing to go to any length, even murder, to protect his secrets.
This work contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Harleen's father is an emotionally abusive alcoholic.
- The Cameo: The novel includes Harleen's first face-to-face encounter with The Joker and the first time she crossed paths with Pamela Isley. It's also implied that the concoction the campus predator uses to subdue his victims is one of The Scarecrow's creations.
- Dartboard of Hate: The Reckoning has an investigation board with photos of their targets pinned on it. A couple of times, Harleen relieves her feelings by throwing darts at the photo of their main target.
- Dying Clue: When Kylie is killed, she has time to write a hidden message saying "HARLEEN DON'T TRUST", but dies without having an opportunity to complete it with the name of her killer. It also causes Harleen some trouble wih the police, who initially read it as "DON'T TRUST HARLEEN".
- Fun with Acronyms: One of the sexist faculty members that the Reckoning goes after has a penchant for inappropriate jokes that includes founding an annual conference with an acronym that spells "BOOBS".
- Missing Mom: Harleen's mother died when she was young.
- Impending Doom P.O.V.: Played with. The novel appears to switch from Harleen's first-person narration to a neutral third-person narration to describe a stalker following Harleen down the street without her knowledge. Then it turns out that the girl he's following is a decoy and the real Harleen has been stalking him, and it becomes apparent that the narrator has still been Harleen the whole time.
- Indulgent Fantasy Segue: When particularly upset and angry, Harleen has vivid Imagine Spots of engaging in cathartic violence, which are always narrated as if they're actually happening before narrator-Harleen stops and says that actually she only imagined that and in reality she did something more restrained. The last one, in which she pictures going to town on the villain of the novel, is a subversion, instead ending with her stopping in shock at the realization that this time it's actually happening.
- In Medias Res: The novel opens with Harleen finding her friend and fellow Reckoning member Bernice comatose after a murderous attack. From there, the novel alternates between chapters set in the months leading up to the attack and chapters showing the aftermath. About halfway through, the flashback chapters catch up to the opening scene, and from then on it's a straight shot to the end of the story.
- Meta Origin: The research team that Harleen is interning with is investigating the "SV gene", which is theorized to be a common factor between all of Gotham's supervillains. The point is carefully made that it's not as simple as "SV gene = supervillain", with other factors also influencing whether the supervillain tendency is ever activated and whether the person succumbs to it — which is reassuring news for Harleen, who learns near the end of the novel that she has the SV gene herself.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: The author's afterword mentions that many of the things done by the Reckoning's targets are inspired by real-life incidents, and specifically points out several that the reader might otherwise assume were too outlandish to happen in real life.
- Once More, with Clarity: Early in the novel, there is a sequence where Harleen has a great evening discussing her theories with her favorite professor. Later, after she's forced to confront the fact that he's a creep with inappropriate designs on her body of work and her actual body, the evening is narrated again, this time including all the red flags she was ignoring the first time.
- Red Herring:
- Professor Perry seems like a good candidate for the campus predator, but it turns out that although he has thoroughly sexist opinions and frequently makes inappropriate comments and 'jokes', there's no evidence that he's ever crossed the line into physical assault.
- The members of the Reckoning start getting threatening messages from a stalker who they suspect of being the campus predator, but when they catch him he turns out to be just an immature jerk with a grudge over one of their pranks.
- The Reveal:
- The formation of the Reckoning wasn't just chance; Bernice masterminded the entire sequence of events with the intention of forming a group who could take down the campus predator.
- Dr Nelson doesn't have the SV gene that's associated with becoming a supervillain — but Harleen does.
- Revenge Before Reason: Bernice slips into this by the end, becoming obsessed with killing the predator who ruined her sister's life and killed her friend before he harms anyone else. She manipulates the rest of the Reckoning to get what she wants, and in the final confrontation, she ignores Harleen's attempts to talk her down and instead tries to emotionally manipulate Harleen into going along with her plan. In the end, Harleen has to save the villain from her friend, who winds up in jail facing attempted murder charges, her future in ruins.
- Stalker without a Crush: The members of the Reckoning find themselves being stalked by someone who leaves threatening messages signed "The Voyeur". He doesn't have a romantic or sexual motive, but sees himself as retaliating on behalf of their "victims", the people whose careers took damage after the Reckoning drew attention to their misogyny.
- String Theory: The Reckoning team set up an investigation board to map out connections between the victims of the campus predator and their suspects, using pieces of colored string to mark connections.
