Recently I went into my local Chapters, and a good friend of mine who works there, helped me pick some new books! This girl is amazing, and she reads SO many books. I knew I could trust her taste, and I bought both books she suggested. One of these amazing books was “The Hypnotist”, by Lars Kepler. She warned me about how terrifying this book is, but I wasn’t even remotely prepared for how incredibly dark and disturbing it really gets (but in the best possible way). This book is seriously HORRIFYING and amazing! If you were a fan of the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” books, then this will be right up your alley. This book has also been translated from Swedish into English, and is a murder mystery set in Sweden. It is absolutely fantastic, and so well paced and gripping (I was awake until 5 am reading for a few nights straight). I also had a wild nightmare, woke up screaming, and scared the shit out of my boyfriend (so be WARNED haha).
Since coming out this book has received rave reviews from various publications. One of my favorite reviews I’ve read for this book, was by Colin Harrison (author of “The Finder”), who described “The Hypnotist” as “Impossible to put down… ingeniously put together, like a Swiss watch..It is also a serious meditation on evil, human weakness, the infinity of the mind, and the capriciousness of fate”. This really hits the nail on the head for me. This book was gripping, and had the haunting Nordic vibe down expertly. I will attach the Good-Reads plot below, in case you want a more in depth plot summary. I am afraid to summarize it, for fear of spoiling a plot twist (there are SO many). Seriously though, if you are a crime thriller fan, this book is for you. Thanks again Bella for the recommendation, this book has made it to my top 10 all-time favs 🙂
GOOD-READS Plot Summary// In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate the murders. The killer is still at large, and there’s only one surviving witness—the boy whose family was killed before his eyes. Whoever committed the crimes wanted this boy to die: he’s suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and lapsed into a state of shock. Desperate for information, Linna sees only one option: hypnotism. He enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to mesmerize the boy, hoping to discover the killer through his eyes.
It’s the sort of work that Bark has sworn he would never do again—ethically dubious and psychically scarring. When he breaks his promise and hypnotizes the victim, a long and terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl.
An international sensation, The Hypnotist is set to appear in thirty-seven countries, and it has landed at the top of bestseller lists wherever it’s been published—in France, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark. Now it’s America’s turn. Combining the addictive power of the Stieg Larsson trilogy with the storytelling drive of The Silence of the Lambs, this adrenaline-drenched thriller is spellbinding from its very first page