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    THE HYPNOTIST
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    THE HYPNOTIST
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    THE HYPNOTIST
    Audiobook17 hours

    THE HYPNOTIST

    Written by Lars Kepler

    Narrated by Eamonn Riley

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    HE WILL TRAP YOU IN A WORLD OF TERROR

    The groundbreaking first novel in the bestselling Joona Linna thriller series.

    A TRAUMATISED WITNESS
    Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm. Detective Inspector Joona Linna is faced with a boy who witnessed the gruesome murder of his family. He’s suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and is comatose with shock.

    A DISGRACED DETECTIVE
    Linna’s running out of time. The police do not want him on the case. The killer’s on the run and there are seemingly no clues. Desperate for information, Linna enlists specialist Dr Erik Maria Bark, a hypnotist who vowed never to practise again.

    A DEVASTATING CASE
    As the hypnosis begins, a long and terrifying chain of events unfurls with reverberations far beyond Linna’s case.

    Perfect for fans of Jo Nesbo.

    Praise for Lars Kepler:

    ‘The thriller that’s taking Europe by storm…ferocious, visceral storytelling that wraps you in a cloak of darkness. It’s stunning.’ Daily Mail

    ‘One of the best – if not the best – Scandinavian crime thrillers I’ve read.’ Red

    ‘All the hallmarks of a classic… this is crime writing at its most devilishly involving.’ Marie Claire

    ‘A genuine chiller…commanding and deeply scarifying stuff.’ Independent

    ‘Riddled with irresistible, nail-biting suspense, this first-class Scandinavian thriller is one of the best I’ve ever read.’ Australian Women’s Weekly

    ‘A rollercoaster ride of a thriller full of striking twists.’ Mail on Sunday

    ‘An horrific and original read.’ The Sun

    ‘a sulphurous whiff of Hannibal Lecter.’ Financial Times

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 12, 2011
    ISBN9780007432745
    Unavailable
    THE HYPNOTIST
    Author

    Lars Kepler

    Lars Kepler is a No.1 bestselling international sensation, whose Joona Linna thrillers have sold more than 12 million copies in 40 languages. The first book in the series, The Hypnotist, was selected for the 2012 Richard and Judy Book Club. The most recent, Stalker, went straight to No.1 in Sweden, Norway, Holland and Slovakia. Lars Kepler is the pseudonym for writing duo, Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril. They live with their family in Sweden.

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    Reviews for THE HYPNOTIST

    3.5/5

    837 ratings72 reviews

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    • 3/5
      'Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm' this ain't. A very deep slice of Nordic gothic horror, 'The Hypnotist' ticks all the boxes: tortured psyches at every turn; violence and torture of kids; violence and torture by kids; unhappiness; and a twisty-turny plot that keeps the suspense and anguish going right to the very end. The descriptions of Nordic life - offhand street/district names, peeks into everyday activity - are key to this book being successful in the Anglo world, describing a culture and landscape (urban and geographic) that is the same, but different, from our own and pushing us just that little bit out of our comfort zone. Lars Kepler (a pseudonym for a pair of writers) keeps us unbalanced throughout by letting us see misunderstandings and wrong assumptions as they are made by each character and I think this is the main contributor to the uneasy, unbalanced feel of the book. We never quite know where it is going and this draws us into the story in a very clever way.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      I might have rated it 3 stars but for all the unnecessary sickening sex scenes, and multiple descriptions of people eating animal parts and Animal products.
      A psychologist who specializes in treating traumatized patients had been running a group therapy where he brought the whole group under hypnotism. These are some really disturbed characters that the author has come up with. One of them likes to take her clothes off and make sexual suggestions to the therapist. One of them reveals, under hypnotism, that she keeps a kid in a cage in her basement and beats him, and when she finds out she revealed this to the group, she kills him and buries him in her backyard.
      The therapist has his own problems: his kid is a hemophiliac, and his wife doesn't trust him because he was unfaithful to her. He's also addicted to pharmaceuticals.
      We barely get to know anything about Joona Linna; all we really find out is that when people doubt him, and later find out he was right about something, he makes them admit it.
      I don't know if I will continue with this series.
    • 4/5
      I really interesting book I just think that sometimes the authors are exaggerating
    • 4/5
      Takes about 50 pages to pick up, but once it does, it becomes nearly impossible to put down. The book stays true to a murder mystery/kidnapping police story, using hypnotism as a backdrop, not a dues ex machina. A great book of the summer.
    • 5/5
      Wow. Wow. Wow. Fantabulantanticous!!! First book in a new Swedish detective crime series has all the ingredients for a major high stakes serial killer thriller mystery story. There are so many related storylines and plots in this horrifying crime that one never knows where the next thing will come from. At first the book seems to be going in the ordinary way of any ordinary mystery and a perp. has been found but... what? only 1/4 of the way into the book... what could possibly happen next? Kepler has oh so much more in store that it is page-turningly impossible to keep up with him. I adored his use of being in the past switching to the present then going back into the immediate past, back and forth until a certain part of the book we need to be immersed into a time period ten years earlier to learn the background that is connected to this present state of affairs. The author manipulates both the multiple time scene changes and multiple cast members with dexterity, never once leaving me feeling dangling. I had a firm grip the whole time and was on the edge of my seat literally from paragraph one. It is hard to tell who the main characters that will follow over into the next volume will be though. Of course DI Joona Linna, but we don't get to know him very well, in this book. We do get to know Dr. Erik Bark much more personally but was he just around for this event or will he be a recurring character. I'd like to see his return. Guess I'll find out soon as "The Nightmare" is coming up soon on my bedtime table. Highly recommended for Scandi-crime fans!
    • 3/5
      Tumba Sweden. Triple homicide. One surviving witness is a young boy. DI Joona Linna asks Dr Erik Bark to hypnotize boy. Terrifying events unfurl. Dr. Bark’s son is kidnapped. His marriage is on the rocks. Dr. Bark is also a drug addict. Dark story. Slow start. Main plot gets sidetracked too many times and makes book too long. Warning: nasty sexual language. Hope next book gets better. Translation may be the problem.
    • 3/5
      I'm not one to have the patience to hold interest for this long, and as someone who pretty much never listens to audio books, I'd say it was decently enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Erik Bark is a hypnotist but hasn't practised for ten years. He is called in by detective Joona Linna to hypnotise a young boy whoose family has been murdered. In the meantime Eriks son Benjamin is kidnapped.I quite enjoyed this book more thsn I thought I would. I liked the character of Joona Linna and will seee him again as I have the second book.What I did find is that the book had two crimes, the murdered family and the kidnap of Benjamin. The first crime seemed to fizzle out and the rest of the story is about Benjamin, with flashbacks to Ericks time as a hypnotist. The only connection to the two stories was Erick but loosely. Perhsps the book needed a more solid connection between the two.I can't say the story was fast paced but it hsd something. Not necessarily a page turner either, but enough to keep reading and enough for me to want to read more.A worthy four stars quite easily.
    • 5/5
      This book...this book was amazing!. I loved the Millenium series and I was a litte bit renuent about this book, because of the whole "new Stieg Larssen" thing. But I was wrong to feel that way.The book starts with a brutal family murder and the only survivor, a young boy,is in such shock that won't speak...the solution? to talk to him under hypnosis to try to figure out who the murderer is.You are going to have a couple of important characters, Inspector Joona is incharge of the investigation, Dr.Erik Bark,the hypnotist,his wife and son, and a coupleof ancient pacients.Everytime I thought I new who did it...I was proven wrong. Unlike another of my favorite book, Earth's Children, the author does not describe the surroundings so much, but you don't need them since from the begining you feel like you are inside the characters head.And OMG! at the end of the book...a.k.a last nigth at midnight, I could not put the book down, I just needed to know what was going to happen.I liked almost every character, except for Erik's wife, but that is for you to decide. You learn to like the characters as they are described so well, they grow into you so easily...I can't wait for the new book: The Paganini Contract...saddly, I do not speak sweddish yet, so I will have to wait for the transalation
    • 4/5
      Joona Linna is investigating a triple homicide and the only witness is a young boy who is in a state of shock. In an attempt to find out if the boy's unconscious remembers anything, Joona hires Erik Maria Bork to mesmerize him. Someone doesn't want Erik to be involved with this case.
    • 4/5
      The Hypnotist is a richly detailed mystery thriller where the suspense builds along a complexly woven timeline. Several times I found myself wondering "why is this happening?" But nothing is extraneous. Everything has a place, even the horrific violence, which I found to be gut-wrenching at the best of times. I felt the Swedish chill of winter reading it.
    • 4/5
      Really enjoyed this. The writing was interesting; almost mechanical at times. The plot was really compelling and I wanted to keep reading. Definitely some weird things in this, like the 100-page long flashback but honestly, none of those things really bothered me. I would absolutely recommend this.
    • 3/5
      I so wanted to like this book more. The description was intriguing…the cover was eye-catching...it was the authors first book. How exciting that must be for a new author to see your "baby' in print? The story wasn’t all bad....but lacked way too much "good". It did start off with promise although a little slow...but it soon just turned “outlandish”, for lack of a better word. The characters were bland and really, truly unlikable… even the ones that had the honor of being the “main characters” …the ones the reader is supposed to care about and root for. On top of that we were presented with too many plot lines….a really unnecessary sex scene when the son was kidnapped…and too much jumping around with confusing flashbacks. The book was written in 2018...I know that my not caring for this book and only giving it 2.5 stars...(the .5 was given out of my sense of remorse for the author)…certainly didn’t cause Mr. Kepler to crawl off and hide his head under the covers and never write another book…so I will search out another from a later year before giving it up.
    • 3/5
      I swear, you never would have known that the main character *was* the main character. The main plot line gets bogged down with useless meanderings & ridiculous subplots that had me skimming by the story´s end.
    • 4/5
      Until I completed the book, I didn’t know that the author of The Hypnotist is a Swedish husband/wife combination that publish under the name of Lars Kepler. This is the first book in their series that features Detective Joona Linna of the Swedish National Crime Police. It is a very dark story filled with violent and brutal crimes, opening with an entire family being savagely murdered. The one surviving witness, the teenage son, is barely clinging to life but the strong willed D.I. Joona Linna persuades Erik Bark, a trauma physician to hypnotize the boy. As Dr. Bark had given up hypnotizing his patients some 10 years ago, this act becomes the focus of the book and opens up a number of plot-lines. The Hypnotist delivers plenty of twists and turns as it transforms from a simple "whodunit” into a very compelling and multi-layered story. Although at over 500 pages, the book is a little long, once the reader is fully immersed, the excellent pacing and complexity of the plot will keep you glued to the pages. I am looking forward to continuing on with this series.
    • 2/5
      I was intrigued when I first picked up an audio copy of The Hypnotist with the comparisons to fellow Swedish thriller author, Steig Larson. Alas, this novel is not in the same league as the works of Larson. This novel is a long winded, overwritten story with multiple plot lines. Although, the novel was intriguing at times and had good tension in spots, there was so much that was wrong with it, that it was hard to enjoy.For starters, the characterization of the main characters, with the exception of Joona Linna, was poor. Erik Maria Bark was an annoying narcissist. His wife was dull and uninteresting. There son did nothing but whine. The novel had multiple plot lines involving the abduction of their son, the treatment of a psychopath using hypnotism, old crazy patients of Bark, and the most ridiculous of them all, a devastating, vicious, lethal gang of young children. Besides the fact that some of the plot lines were a bit weak, the novel went massive stretches without mentioning some of them, making them out of sight, out of mind. Also, there was an absurdly long flash back, which could have been worked in, in smaller bites. The novel was far too long. There was lots of fluff that could have been removed, and although there were positive aspects of it and certain parts that I enjoyed, overall this was not a particularly good novel and definitely not as good as Steig Larson.Carl Alves – author of The Invocation
    • 3/5
      The Hypnotist is about a hypnotist who, after a ten year hiatus, hypnotizes the victim of a crime. After doing this, his life filled with twists and turns. I won this book from the first-reads author giveaway. This book was a little hard to get into at first, but I was eventually drawn into it. Sometimes there were details that could have been left out because it made for very boring reading. There is also a lot of going back and forth throughout the book. Overall, it was a pretty good read.
    • 3/5
      Set my teeth on edgeI could not get into this book no matter how often I picked it up. There was something about each of the characters that set my teeth on edge. The floundering around of the detecting team was irritating too, as was the dithering of Mr. Hypnotist whose decisions caused all these problems. Finns are usually quiet yet decisive people but Joona Linna hardly ripples the air.I received a review copy of "The Hypnotist" by Lars Kepler (Knopf Doubleday) through NetGalley.com.
    • 3/5
      'The Hypnotist', the first in a series by the husband/wife team writing in Sweden under the pen name 'Lars Kepler', is a decent mystery that's just TOO DAMN LONG!! At 500+ pages, it could've been trimmed by a couple hundred, easily. Heck, just eliminating a few of the traditional Scandinavian introspective sequences would've helped immensely. The plot was pretty unique: there's a gruesome multiple murder, the sole survivor is barely hanging on in the hospital, and the only hope of finding the murderer seems to be by enlisting the help of a doctor who used to practice hypnosis. He finally agrees to get involved, after much introspection, shakes the rust off his hypnosis skills, puts the patient under (after much introspection on the part of the medical and law enforcement communities), and gets far more than he bargained for. The patient is actually the killer, he escapes, and is assumed to be hunting down the last remaining member of his family. In the meantime, the doctor's young son is kidnapped under odd circumstances. So, we're trying to track down a murderer before he kills again and a kidnapper who may or may not be connected to the original investigation.I give the Kepler duo a pass on the writing, since it was translated and at least readable. However, there's very little character development (the star of the series, detective Joona Linna, is known to feel that he's 'always right'... but that's about all we know about him). We know more about the doctor, his wife, and the son, but aspects of what's revealed about them (sexual indiscretions, pill usage, etc.) are never resolved. A key piece of the plot, the kidnapping of the doctor's son, seems to baffle him as he professes to be unaware of anyone who'd ever want to hurt him, yet it's obvious that there were at least a couple ex-patients out there with a really sharp axe to grind. The story plods along until a spectacularly violent conclusion that doesn't exactly pass the credibility test. All things considered, some interesting psychological pieces make 'The Hypnotist' readable, but it's a slog to make it through to the payoff.
    • 3/5
      I found the story fascinating and engrossing but the translation got in the way of enjoying this book. The point of view changed far too often and too quickly and the language was stilted at times.

      The main characters also were difficult to feel an empathy with; the detective seemed overly clever without any real background to that cleverness or to any other part of his character. The hypnotist himself was self serving, whiny and unsympathetic, which I'm assuming was deliberate.

      However, the storyline moved along at a good pace, there were some interesting twists and turns and for a big book it read fairly quickly.
    • 4/5
      This book was creepy and amazing. Inspector Joona Linna is a likeable character who is confident in his abilities - and it is a nice trait to see in a detective! The story itself is so intriguing and the depravity of the crime is both sickening and tantalizing all at the same time (I know that makes me sound like a psychopath but it is true)! There was a point in the story where I felt like things were a bit disjointed - I'm not going to say what it is or when it happens, but you will know when you get there - and it felt like the rest of the story from that point onwards was part of a completely different narrative. That was the only negative point to this novel, however. I loved the writing style and the fast pace kept me at the edge of my seat. Perhaps it isn't AS amazing as The Millenium Trilogy but it is definitely up there in the ranks for me!
    • 1/5

      I have long been a "fan" of Scandinavian authors: Sjoewall and Wahloo's police series, SMILLA'S SENSE OF SNOW were among my favorites; and I was delighted when the hiatus of translation of Nordic languages into English was ended with the incredible array of talented new writers. Steig Larsson, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbe, to name a few, have written written some of the best post-modern noir fiction to date. This is why I picked up THE HYPNOTIST from my local library. However, this was a disappointing book, in fact, I could not finish reading it. The writing ( translation?) was uneven, the characters were not credible, and the entire book seemed forced, as if it were written in response to the enthusiasm generated by much better writers, in the hope that it, too, would be an international best seller.
    • 2/5
      The Hypnotist. Lars Kepler. 2011. These days every Swedish mystery is compared with Stieg Larsen, and so far none have measured up. I had high hopes for this one. The child villain reminded me of Kevin in We Need to Talk about Kevin. I also really liked the lead policeman, Joona Linna, however, I did not like the subplot of the hypnotist even though he was the main character and eventually he was brought into the plot showing his relationship to the psychotic child. If I read another and I may because I was taken with Joona, I’ll read the synopsis more carefully. It was suspenseful and well written
    • 2/5
      A quick but disappointing read. The story felt disjointed, don't know if that is down to the writing or a problem with the translation. Also the characters are really unlikable, didn't care if they all made it to the end of the book.
    • 4/5
      Not as chilling as The Sandman but still a good read anyway. The problem is that this is not a straightforward police drama; the detective Joona Linna disappears and we have this long story of Erik Maria Bark, a psychiatrist who is dismissed from his research post by lies (why do Swedes believe everything they hear or read) and whose son is kidnapped by one of his old hypnosis group members. The authors really do not believe that hypnosis can work;only one of the doctor's group is healed and one is a suicide and one is a murderer and kidnapper and one is an unregenerate Serbian killer. The windup involves Joona and is great.
    • 4/5
      The most exciting book that I have read all year! This pulsating medical thriller pores on the adrenaline fuel chase in this sensational Scandinavian crime thriller like nothing since the Stieg Larsson trilogy.
      When Stockholm’s eminent psychologist, Dr. Erik Maria Bark, is called in to assist in a gruesome triple homicide, he has to place a teenage boy, the only witness to his families devastating annihilation and in a semi-coma with a multitude of life-threatening stab wounds, under hypnosis. The results of his action let lose a plague on his family as if the horsemen of the apocalypse had ridden into town.
      With the help of detective Joona Linna the author takes us forward, through a series of flashbacks on a chase to rescue Bark’s teenage son, kidnapped by unknown forces, and to find the murdered families eldest daughter before she took is wiped from the earth. The police suspect the two cases are linked but the how and why will rock you to the core.
      Not for the faint of heart the journey exposes story-lines of incest, torture, and sex-crimes that delve into the past of all concerned and produces a liturgy of sins and repentance, exposing human deeds we only dare see in nightmares. This is a barnstormer of a novel that, in the end, casts a hypnotic spell on its readers through to the very end.
    • 2/5
      I loved the first third of the book. The initial plot with Eric hypnotizing the boy who had survived the killing of his family was engrossing. Form there, however, the author goes in all other directions, finding a nasty group of kids play-acting in Pokemon characters, Eric's son is kidnapped, his father-in-law is enlisted by his wife(who, it turns out is having an affair despite her constant suspicions of her husbands fidelity. And worst, the author goes back in time for about a fifty-page backstory of Eric's group hypnosis where the reader never knows for sure what is happening or how it possibly links to anything else. The end was more like a horror story than suspense.Very disappointing for a book that started out so exciting.
    • 4/5
      With the success of the Stieg Larsson books, inevitably, comparisons are made to books by other Swedish writers. I had been hearing so much hype about this book I had to go from one book of “umlauted” names right into the next. Again, a very intriguing murder mystery but with a totally different tone. As the book opens we meet Detective Inspector Joona Lina, investigating a particularly nasty homicide of apparently an entire family. We soon discover that two children are alive, one sister who was not at home and the youngest son, in terrible medical peril from the injuries he suffered and, the only person who can identify the killer. Suspecting that the sister is in mortal danger they decide to hypnotize the boy to try and find out the killer’s name. Enter Dr. Erik Bark, renowned hypnotist, but one who promised never to practice hypnosis again. Against his better judgment he agrees to hypnotize the boy. This single act begins the unraveling of an astonishing story.

      As in the Larsson books this book is filled with a vast cast of characters … admittedly a bit difficult to follow at the beginning. But as the story evolves they all fall into place and take the reader on a mad road of twists and turns to get to the end.

      Is this book better than Larsson’s? For me, I enjoyed the Dragon Tattoo series more. The reason I feel that way is because it became a little tiresome to read about the relationship between Dr. Bark and his wife.

      Would I read more by this author? Definitely.
    • 3/5
      In another entry into the Scandinavian crime genre, a family is brutally murdered and the only witness to the crime is a badly injured teenage boy, the family's son. Detective Inspector Joona Linna, is brought into the scene to investigate the murders and find out what has become of the missing daughter. After the son recovers, Linna is unable to pry sufficient information from his memory of the event to solve the case, so he turns to a hypnotist called Erik Maria Bark, in hopes of finding subconscious-level memories of the incident. It’s the sort of work that Bark has sworn he would never do again. When he breaks his promise and hypnotizes the victim, a long and terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl. This decision almost costs Erik his family, and horrific discoveries are revealed about the true nature of Joseph Ek’s involvement in the crime. This story line runs in tandem with another crisis for Erik, when an abduction forces him to retreat into a dark world he thought he had forgotten long ago and his past as a hypnotist. I found this novel interesting but having 2 plots which may or may not overlap was confusing at times. The tone is typically Swedish drama—brooding, dark, depressing. I enjoyed this novel more than the last Swedish crime novel I read—the Wallander series, but not as much as I enjoyed the Girl with Dragon Tattoo series. I am not sure that I enjoyed this novel enough that I would seek out other books in the series. 3 out of 5 stars.
    • 1/5
      This book showed the promise of an exciting story. However, I feel it lacked focus in its lead character. I was confused at one point, who was the lead character. This meant the story seemed to be all over the place. The idea was brilliant, but sadly for me did not deliver the depth it needed.