The Sleepwalker by Lars Kepler #bookreview #series #translatedbook

I purchased this book for my own collection.

Publisher: Zaffre

Published: January 11, 2024

 

Summary:

The tenth thrilling installment in Lars Kepler’s bestselling series— acclaimed for “smart psychological suspense,” “explosive conclusions,” and “gritty portrayals of human evil” (Booklist)—is tense and terrifying.

An emergency call comes in the middle of the night. There is an ongoing burglary at a closed campsite in Bredäng, outside Stockholm. When the police respond to the call, there is a light on in one of the farthest caravans in the otherwise dark area, where the officers are greeted by a horrific sight. The floors, walls, and furniture are completely covered in blood. A person has been killed with an axe and brutally dismembered. In one of the rooms, a young man is sleeping on the floor with a severed arm as his pillow. He is arrested and taken into custody at Kronobergshäktet. There, he is identified as seventeen-year-old Hugo Sand, the son of a famous author.

It turns out that Hugo is suffering from a rare kind of somnambulism, which is triggered by nightmares. He is either the perpetrator or a witness but claims that he remembers nothing from that night.

When Joona Linna is asked to take on the case, he contacts his old friend Erik Marie Bark to use hypnosis in the quest to find out what happened inside the caravan. This is the start of a complicated hunt for a terrifying killer who has just entered an extremely active phase.

 

My thoughts:

This is the 10th book in the Joona Linna series and since there is no word of when it is to be published in the states, I ordered it from overseas…and I have no regrets. This book was fantastic!! I love this series and this latest installment is proof of that!

I will start with my usual spiel – this book, as with all the others in this series – it very dark and very disturbing. It is not for everyone…but if you can handle it, I highly recommend it. And while it can be read as a stand-alone, I do recommend reading the series in order…the character development is top notch, plus there are characters that make an appearance in this book, and their relationships are better understood if you have read the previous books.

That out of the way, this book really worked my brain as I tried to figure out who the killer was. It was such a cleverly plotted story, incredibly gory and gritty – quite possibly the worst we’ve seen to date in this series – and yet I could not read it fast enough. I needed to see how it all came together, and who was behind it all. There were so many suspects, and I think I might have pointed the finger at just about everyone at one point…never quite getting to the actual guilty party.

I loved that Erik Marie Bark was back – he was one of my favorites from an earlier installment and when I saw that this book involved sleepwalking, it just made sense to get him involved. The case was insane…what happens if you witness a murder while sleepwalking? Is it possible you did it? Can hypnosis help find the actual memories?

I loved being back with Jonna Linna. He’s so determined to get to the bottom of things, before more deaths occur. I just wish Saga Bauer were more involved…I love when they team up! Maybe in the next book?

 

Books in this series:

1. The Hypnotist
2. The Nightmare
3. The Fire Witness
4. The Sandman
5. Stalker
6. The Rabbit Hunter
7. Lazarus
8. The Mirror Man
9. The Spider
10. The Sleepwalker