< OK >Hypnotist = Hype + no
Just ‘cause it’s Scandinavian doesn’t make it good
Maybe the problem was that “Lars Kepler” is actually a husband-and-wife writing team. The first 300 odd pages read really well ... a truly nasty psycho baddie ... but he just about disappeared in the last third as the story went off on another tangent. And the other tangent could have been a stand alone story.
There was an overabundance .... of characters - the hypnotist and the detective, but also the wife and the father-in-law ... and baddies - the serial killer, the Pokemon gang ... and multiple individuals from the hypnotherapy group. Too much.
I didn’t so much mind the flashback sections with the hypnotherapy sessions but found it dragged and could have been just as relevant with a good edit. And sadly the main psycho from the group just showed up as a bright-red herring to me. So obvious.
And then there were the overly cutesy bits ... the detective who always needs to be told he was right and taking Maccas to father-in-law in hospital made the last few pages gag worthy.
But apart from all that ... it was a get-you-in read (in need of a good edit)
