The Hypnotist

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Fiction 

A dark, icy thriller   

THE HYPNOTIST
By Lars Kepler
Translated from the Swedish by Ann Long
528 pp. Picador

Reviewed by Eric Petersen

Over the past few years, Swedish thrillers have become hugely popular in the United States. First, John Ajvide Lindqvist gave us the unforgettable vampire classic Let The Right One In, then Stieg Larsson came calling with his Millennium series. Now, another Swedish author debuts with a memorable thriller.

In The Hypnotist, Lars Kepler (the pseudonym for husband and wife writing team Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril) delivers a gruesome and disturbing tale of psychological horror as dark and icy as winter in Stockholm.

The novel opens with a horrific crime - an entire family has been found murdered, literally slashed to pieces. Well, almost an entire family. The son, 15-year-old Josef Ek, miraculously survives. Rushed to the hospital in critical condition, he remains unconscious, covered with a hundred stab wounds.

At first, the police believe that the killings were an act of retribution against the father, Erland Ek, a compulsive gambler heavily indebted to loan sharks. Joona Linna, a brilliant and relentless homicide detective for Sweden's equivalent of the FBI, believes otherwise. When his hunch is proven correct - Erland Ek was murdered first, making it unlikely that gangsters were responsible - he takes over the case.

There is one more survivor of the Ek family massacre - the oldest daughter, Evelyn, whose whereabouts are currently unknown, as she didn't live with the family. Unfortunately, when her brother Josef regains consciousness, his psychological trauma plunges him into a catatonic state.

Fearing that the maniac who killed Evelyn's parents and little sister may be out looking for her, Detective Linna makes a fateful decision. He contacts Dr. Erik Maria Bark, a brilliant psychiatrist and master hypnotist, to help him unlock the secrets in Josef Ek's troubled mind.

Dr. Bark is troubled himself. He's addicted to sleeping pills and tranquilizers, his marriage is crumbling, and his relationship with his 14-year-old son Benjamin, who suffers from a rare and severe blood disorder, is strained at best. Ten years earlier, Bark vowed never to hypnotize anyone again, a vow he's always kept. Until now. He agrees to hypnotize Josef Ek to help the police save his sister's life.

The hypnosis session produces shocking results. Brought out of his catatonia, Josef is taken back via hypnotic regression to the scene of his family's murder. He sees himself butcher his parents and little sister. Furious, he vows revenge against Dr. Bark.

Josef's hypnosis session is inadmissible as evidence, so Joona Linna must rely on his skill as a detective to find Evelyn Ek and close the case. The girl is found safe, living quietly in a remote cottage. When the police tell her of her family's murder, she breaks down - then sinks her teeth into the throat of a policewoman who tries to console her.

Taken into custody, Evelyn tells Detective Linna a shocking story of domestic madness and depravity. After Josef was born, their mother suffered from postpartum psychosis and refused to believe that he was her child. She wanted nothing to do with Josef, so Evelyn was given the responsibility of raising him.

From a very young age, Josef showed signs of being an evil, violent psychopath and sexual deviant. Ever since he was eight years old, he'd forced Evelyn to satisfy his perverted desires, threatening to murder their baby sister if she refused - a crime she knew he was capable of committing. But if Josef did murder his little sister and parents, why stab himself a hundred times?

Before Detective Linna can answer these nagging questions, Josef Ek, despite his injuries, murders a nurse and escapes from the hospital. Not long afterward, someone breaks into Dr. Bark's home, drugs his wife, and abducts his son.

Now the detective and the psychiatrist are left with more questions than answers. Josef Ek had vowed revenge against Dr. Bark, but why would he drug Bark's wife and take his son? Wouldn't he have simply murdered them instead? To make matters worse, if Benjamin Bark doesn't receive his next coagulant injection within a few days, he could die of a hemorrhage at any moment.

Dr. Bark thinks back ten years earlier, when his groundbreaking research in group hypnotherapy for adult victims of childhood abuse came to a sudden, crashing end. His patients were traumatized by a false memory accidentally planted during hypnosis. One patient attempted suicide, and another, a seriously disturbed woman, vowed revenge.

Meanwhile, Bark's wife brings her father, a retired ex-cop, into the investigation of their son's abduction. Together, they uncover Benjamin's association with a gang of strange, moody kids obsessed with the fantasy card game Pokemon. Could they be responsible?

The story takes many twists and turns, holding the reader in the grip of suspense en route to a nail-biting climax that features a final, surprise twist.

Lars Kepler delivers a thrilling tale of psychological horror with this novel. The English translation by Ann Long is generally solid. Some may be put off by the present tense narration and the awkward switch from third to first person point of view that takes place some 300 pages into the novel, as Dr. Bark recalls his hypnotherapy experiment that went awry. The manuscript could definitely use more editing.

Still, I recommend The Hypnotist as a worthy entry in the new genre of Swedish thrillers. You won't be able to put it down. Sköl!