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Narrated by Saul Reichlin
Lars KeplerUnabridged — 17 hours, 38 minutes
Narrated by Saul Reichlin
Lars KeplerUnabridged — 17 hours, 38 minutes
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The Swedish novel The Hypnotist…arrives on these shores as the latest contender in the "next Stieg Larsson" sweepstakes. I doubt that it will sell as outrageously as Larsson's Millennium trilogy…but it's a worthy contender: a serious, disturbing, highly readable novel that is finally a meditation on evil.
—The Washington Post
The brutal slaying of gambling addict Anders Ek, his wife, and his younger daughter propels this outstanding thriller debut from the pseudonymous Kepler (a Swedish literary couple), introducing Stockholm detective Joona Linna. Only Ek's 15-year-old son, Josef, left for dead at his parents' house, survives. Realizing that the vicious killer is likely to also target an older daughter no longer living at home, Linna asks Erik Maria Bark, a trauma physician who practiced hypnosis before being banned from using the technique 10 years earlier, to hypnotize the seriously injured Josef in the hospital. When Josef later escapes from the hospital and Bark's teenage son, Benjamin, is kidnapped, the ensuing frantic search raises the ante. Flashbacks to Bark's hypnosis therapy group reveal that one patient became suicidal in the course of revisiting her past. A well-integrated subplot involving a gang of terrifying boys and girls adds to the suspense. Readers will look forward to seeing more of Linna in what one hopes will be a long series. (July)
Full of surprises and more than enough twists to keep those pages turning well into the night.” —NPR
“Compellingly grisly.” —Vogue
“A gripping series of twists and turns.... A natural successor to the Stieg Larsson series.” —Parade
“A pulse-pounding debut that’s already a native smash.” —Financial Times (London)
In the Stockholm suburb of Tumba, a family has been found brutally butchered. The only survivor, a 15-year-old boy who suffered more than 100 knife wounds, is in a state of shock. Desperate to identify the killer before there is another murder, homicide detective Joona Linna asks Erik Maria Bark, a doctor specializing in trauma, to hypnotize the victim. Having a decade ago given up the practice of hypnosis, Bark complies reluctantly, unwittingly setting off a chain of violent events that climax at a lakeside cabin north of the Arctic Circle. Already a best seller in Europe and scheduled to be filmed by director Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules), this smart, unpredictable thriller by a pseudonymous Swedish literary couple features an intriguing premise, plenty of cinematic action and twists, and an appropriately chilly and gothic Nordic atmosphere. VERDICT While Kepler's protagonists lack Lisbeth Salander's charisma and the loose ends are too neatly tied up, the high-octane plot will capture readers bored by Stieg Larsson's sometimes glacial social and political asides. Be aware that some readers may confuse this with M.J. Rose's reincarnation thriller of the same title. [Library marketing; see Prepub Alert, 1/10/11.]—Wilda Williams, Library Journal
It’s official: There’s no one left in Scandinavia not writing a thriller/horror novel. This entry in the Stieg Larsson sweepstakes should go off at very, very good odds. It’s taut, it’s interesting, and it has about twice as many amoral and murderous lunatics as its competitors. What’s not to like? The hypnotist is a psychiatrist who has pledged never to use hypnosis again and then does so in order to save a life. Why he took that pledge, and what psychos will come out of the woodwork when he breaks it, plays out like a three-ring circus, camera-ready at that. Mark Bramhall’s Scandinavian voices and accents ring so true you forget he’s acting, and the all-important pace he creates is utterly compelling, controlled, and irresistible. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
A new star enters the firmament of Scandinavian thrillerdom, joining the likes of Larsson, Nesbø and Mankell.
Kepler, a pseudonym for what the publisher describes as "a literary couple who live in Sweden," continues in the Stygian—or, better, Stiegian—tradition of unveiling the dark rivers that swirl under the seemingly placid and pacific Nordic exterior. Scarcely has the novel opened when we find a scene of extreme mayhem: A schoolteacher and his librarian wife, pillars of their small Stockholm-area community, have been savagely butchered, and their young daughter, too, with a teenage son sliced to ribbons and left for dead. Enter Erik Maria Bark, a therapist and hypnotist called onto the scene by the supervising physician and a world-weary (naturally) police investigator, Joona Linna, who theorizes that the killer had waited for the father, a soccer referee in his off hours, hacked him into pieces, then headed to his house to dispatch the rest of the family, suggesting at least some acquaintance. "It happened in that order?" asks Bark, ever methodical, to which Linna responds, "In my opinion."Both men are guarded, for both have been wounded in the past, and both are fighting battles of their own in the present. Their psychic conflicts are nothing compared to those that rage through the scissors- and knife-wielding types they encounter in trying to get to the bottom of the crime, which takes them across miles and years. Kepler handles a complex plot assuredly, though the momentary switch from third- to first-person narration in midstream, as well as the shifts forward and backward in time, may induce whiplash. (They're for a good reason.) Linna and Bark make a great crime-solving pair precisely because they puzzle each other so thoroughly—says Bark, for instance, "The patient always speaks the truth under hypnosis. But it's only a matter of what he himself perceives as the truth." To which Linna responds, "What is it you're trying to say?" Indeed.
What Bark is trying to say is that there are monsters hiding everywhere beneath the reasonable and rational, and Kepler's book makes for a satisfying and scary testimonial.
| BN ID: | 2940169469936 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 07/31/2018 |
| Series: | Joona Linna Series , #1 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
9780525433125|excerpt
Kepler / THE HYPNOTIST
1
Early Tuesday morning, December 8
Erik’s phone is ringing. Before he is fully awake he says, “Balloons and streamers.”
His heart is racing from being awakened so suddenly. Erik doesn’t know why he said that. He has no idea what he had been dreaming about.
In order not to wake Simone, he creeps out of the bedroom and closes the door before he answers.
“Hello, this is Erik Maria Bark.”
A detective by the name of Joona Linna tells him that he needs his help. Erik is only half awake as he listens.
“I’ve heard you’re good at dealing with trauma,” the detective says.
“Yes,” Erik replies simply.
He takes a Tylenol as he listens. The detective explains that he needs to question someone, a fifteen-year-old boy who has witnessed a double murder. The problem is that the teenager has been seriously injured and is in an unstable condition. He’s in a state of shock, and he hasn’t yet regained consciousness.
“Who’s treating him?” Erik asks.
“Daniella Richards.”
“She’s highly competent. I’m sure she’ll be able to—”
“It was her idea to call you,” the detective interrupts. “We need your help, and we probably don’t have much time.”
Erik goes back into the bedroom to get his clothes. A streetlight shines in between the blinds. Simone is lying on her back, watching him with an oddly vacant expression.
“I was trying not to wake you,” he says softly.
“Who was that?” she asks.
“A police officer . . . a detective. I didn’t catch his name.”
“What did he want?”
“I have to go to Karolinska,” he replies. “They need help with a teenage boy.”
“What time is it, anyway?”
She looks at the alarm clock and closes her eyes. He can see the lines made by folds in the sheet across her freckled shoulders.
“Go back to sleep, Simone,” he whispers.
Erik carries his clothes out into the hallway, turns the light on, and quickly gets dressed. A length of steel suddenly flashes behind him. Erik turns and sees that his son has hung his ice skates from the handle of the front door so that he won’t forget them. Even though Erik is in a hurry, he goes over to the closet and digs out the protective guards. He fastens them to the sharp blades, then puts them down on the hall carpet and leaves.
It’s three o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, December 8. Snow is falling slowly from the black sky. There’s no wind at all, and the heavy flakes land sleepily on the deserted street. He turns the key in the ignition, and a soft wave of music rolls through the car: Miles Davis, Kind of Blue.
He drives the short distance through the sleeping city, down Luntmakar Street and along Svea Boulevard toward Norrtull. The water of Brunns Lake is a large, dark expanse beyond the snow. He drives slowly into the hospital campus, between the understaffed Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital and the maternity ward, past the radiotherapy department and psychiatric unit, and parks in his usual spot in front of neurosurgery. The glow of the streetlights reflects off the windows of the large complex. There are hardly any cars in the parking lot. Blackbirds flit through the gloom around the trees; the flapping of their wings breaks the silence.
He swipes his card, taps in the six-digit code, and enters the lobby, then takes the elevator up to the fifth floor and walks down the hall. The fluorescent lights reflect off the blue linoleum floor, making it look like ice. Now that the initial adrenaline rush is fading, he starts to feel tired. He passes an operating room and walks past the doors to the huge hyperbaric chamber, then says hello to a nurse as he recalls what the detective told him over the phone: A teenage boy has knife wounds all over his body. The police attempted to speak to him, but his condition deteriorated quickly.
Two uniformed police officers are standing outside the door to Ward 18. Erik can see a trace of anxiety cross their faces as he approaches. Maybe they’re just tired, he thinks as he stops in front of them and shows them his ID. They glance at it, and then one of them presses the button to make the door swing open.
Erik walks in and shakes hands with Daniella Richards, noting the tension in her face and the stress in the way she moves.
“Grab some coffee,” she says.
“Do we have time?” Erik asks.
“I’ve managed to get the bleeding from his liver under control,” she replies.
A man in his mid-forties, dressed in jeans and a black jacket, is tapping the frame of the coffee machine. His blond hair is messy, and his lips are clenched. Erik wonders if he might be Daniella’s husband, Magnus. He’s never met him, just seen a picture in her office.
“Is that Magnus?” Erik asks, gesturing toward the man.
“What?” She looks both amused and surprised.
“I thought maybe Magnus had come with you.”
“No,” she says, laughing.
“Are you sure? Maybe I should ask him,” Erik jokes, and starts to walk toward the man.
Daniella’s cell phone rings, and she’s still laughing as she takes it out. “Stop it, Erik,” she says, as she answers and puts the phone to her ear. “Yes, Daniella here.”
She listens but can’t hear anything.
“Hello?”
She waits a few seconds, then ends the call with a sarcastic “Have a nice day,” slips the phone in her pocket, and follows Erik.
He’s already walked over to the blond man. The coffee machine is bubbling and wheezing.
“Have some coffee,” the man says, trying to hand Erik a mug.
“No, thanks.”
The man tastes the coffee and smiles, revealing dimples in his cheeks.
“It’s good,” he says, and tries to give Erik the mug again.
“I don’t want any.”
The man drinks some more as he looks at Erik.
“Could I borrow your phone?” he suddenly asks. “I left mine in my car.”
“You want to borrow my phone?” Erik asks.
The blond man nods and looks at him with pale eyes, as gray as polished granite.
“You’re welcome to borrow mine,” Daniella says.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
The blond man takes her phone.
“I promise you’ll get it back,” he says.
“You’re the only person who ever calls me on it anyway,” she teases.
He laughs and moves away.
“He must be your husband,” Erik says.
“A girl can always dream,” she says, glancing at the tall man.
Daniella has been rubbing her eyes, and her silver-gray eyeliner is streaked across one cheek.
“Shall I take a look at the patient?” Erik asks.
She nods. “By all means.”
“Seeing as I’m here,” he quickly adds.
“Erik, I’d love to hear what you think. I’m not sure about this one.”
