A Swedish thriller that's "phenomenal" and an "international sensation in France, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark." You've heard this before, but trust me. It's not PR hyperbole. The Hypnotist (Sarah Crichton Books/FSG, $27, 9780374173951, June 21, 2011), written by Lars Kepler and translated by Marlaine Delargy, is extraordinary--a heart-pounding, enthralling story of madness and malevolence.
A 15-year-old boy lies unconscious in a Solna hospital, just north of Stockholm. He's suffered hundreds of knife wounds, the only survivor of a vicious attack in his home that killed his mother and younger sister. The bodies had been stabbed multiple times, kicked and beaten, and the little girl had been cut in half. The boy's father was found dead at a playground, and Evelyn, an older sister, is missing. Homicide detective Joona Linna thinks the killer is after her, too, and is sure the boy would be able to identify the killer, but how to get the information? At the advice of the doctor in charge, he calls another physician, Erik Maria Bark, who specializes in treating acute trauma. Bark rushes to the hospital, examines the boy, Josef, and says it's not possible to question him. When Linna casually suggests trying hypnosis, Bark forcefully declines, realizing he was called to the hospital to hypnotize the boy, a practice he had vowed a decade earlier to stop. He goes home, takes a few pills and falls asleep. But Linna is determined to find the sister, Evelyn, and equally determined to persuade Bark to hypnotize Josef; Bark finally capitulates, and when he starts, he realizes that he has longed to do this again.
With the response he elicits from Josef, the puzzle deepens--is it possible that the boy killed his family and mutilated himself? Theoretically, yes, and to complicate matters, as Josef regains his strength, he accuses Bark of messing with his head, and threatens to "eliminate" him. Soon newspapers pick up the story with articles like "New Hypnosis Scandal for Tarnished Doc." Bark had promised never to hypnotize again after being accused of planting false memories in the mind of a woman in a therapy group of trauma survivors. There are further complications involving Bark's wife, Simone, who worries about his dependence on drugs and fears that he is unfaithful; Benjamin, Bark's teenage son, who has a blood disorder and has run afoul of some delinquent boys named after Pokémon characters; Evelyn, Josef's sister, who's found and is suicidal. And then Benjamin is abducted. Confusion arises from misdirection based on suspicion and contempt, and false leads based on good information. Bark and Linna attempt to untangle the clues as time is running out, while Bark delves into his past for answers that may lie in the therapy group. He wants to find his son; Linna is driven by an inner need.
Joona Linna's track record is unparalleled in Sweden; his success is partly due to the fact that he never gives up. What most of his colleagues don't know is that his stubbornness is the result of unbearable personal guilt. "Guilt that drives him, and renders him incapable of leaving a case unsolved. He never speaks about what passed. And he never forgets what happened." Something about driving in sunlight after a rain, everything "so wonderfully beautiful, and then gone forever."
Two men with pasts they cannot escape, single-minded in their attempt to stop an unspeakable horror as great as the horror at the beginning of the book--Lars Kepler hurls them through a riveting story of obsession and revenge. The Hypnotist is played out against the backdrop of a Swedish winter, where snow falls from a black sky, the trees are bare, and the chilling ice and slush are no match for the searing burn of evil. --Marilyn Dahl