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Saxton Reads! & Reviews

We invite the public to post reviews to our catalog by logging into our online catalog. Reviews will then be posted to this blog. Comments can be added to existing posts or may be added as separate reviews on our catalog
JULY 18, 2011
The Hypnotist~ Lars Kepler
comments by CarolK

The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler (pseudonym)is a good summer read if only for its cold setting.It's being billed as a natural for fans of The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo. Don't read it however, if you're looking for the next Lizbeth Salander. The Hypnotist is a Swedish thriller, translated and brought to our shores in keeping with our craving of more of this genre. 

The Hypnotist starts out with enough brutal killing for any die hard fan of graphic, sadistic slayings. The scene is horribly vivid as the bodies of four members of a family, one a very young child, are found slashed and literally in pieces. A survivor, 15 year old, Josef Ek, found at the scene, is hanging on by a thread. His injuries are so life threatening that when hospitalized, staff call in Erik Maria Bark, a hypnotist, to see if he can obtain information that would help police identify the attacker. This to prevent the killer finishing off Josef and the only other surviving member of the family, his sister, Evelyn, not living home at the time of the murders. 

There's lots more going on here than just the murder of the family. Slowly, at the beginning and with increasing speed, paced exquisitely; The Hypnotist reveals its story and the core roots of evil. It's a thriller for sure but for me, more a horror story; the real kind, where man's inhumanity to man is portrayed in all its ultimate depravity. That it takes place in the month leading to Christmas only makes it more compelling. 

Lars Kepler introduces some interesting characters in Erik Maria Bark, The Hypnotist, whose background is weaved throughout, and that of his shaky marriage with wife, Simone. Benjamin, their son, who suffers from a rare blood disease, becomes an integral part of the book when he is kidnapped. Motives for the kidnapping and who's responsible spiral the plot to its conclusion. Simone's father, a retired policeman is thrown in to help. Unfortunately he only proves to make me dislike Simone more as she is depicted as a daddy's girl. Of course, there is a policeman too, Joona Linna, who fits the atmosphere of the frigidness of the book's locale. His stoic rightness becomes an endearing trademark of his character. Definitely a sequel in the works by the setup of the characters. The one I'd like to see more of is by far Dr. Erik Maria Bark. His role as hypnotist and its study leaves much more to explore. 

503 pages read quickly and could be done in one sitting if you want to zip to the finish. I thought it was a bit too long; a shorter, tighter story would have been more rewarding. All in all though, a solid choice for summer reading and a new addition to the growing list of Swedish authors. 

Oh, did I mention that Lars Kepler is the writing team of a literary couple? NPR has the story The Authors Behind The Author of 'The Hypnotist'.

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