The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler***

Reading dates: 15 March – 10 April 2020

The Hypnotist is a good solid thriller, enjoyable and true to genre but with nothing special to it. I liked the main police detective Joona Linna but there is nowhere near enough of him and his thinking. His gimmick of always being right and having to hear other people say it is also very annoying. Still, it is good Scandi-noir, with good snow visual imagery, two plots that alternate (a murder and a kidnapping), with some appropriate hypnosis scenes in the middle. I liked the structure of short chapters with a long flashback chapter in the middle (as a writer, I do the opposite). I enjoyed the change in rhythm. Perhaps I will go back to Lars Kepler, or perhaps not. There is nothing that drew me in, in particular. Nothing I connected with like I connect with Nesbø (although not always), Denise Mina or Tana French. But, equally, it was a good thriller, and sometimes I need those.