“The Sleepwalker is a gripping, harrowing psychological crime thriller.”
Along with the British and the Americans, the Swedish have built quite a reputation in the genre of crime and mystery novels that have become international best sellers.
For example, there are the Martin Beck detective novels by the duo of Per Wahloo and Maj Sjowall (including The Laughing Policeman, which became a movie in 1973 with Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern); and of course the Millenium Trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson (i.e., The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
Their tenth Linna thriller, The Sleepwalker, was the top selling fiction title in their native Sweden when it was released there last year. And now that it’s available in English for the first time, this tense 502-page novel is one of the reasons why Kepler’s books are such an international sensation with mystery buffs.
The story begins at a closed campsite just outside of Stockholm. Police are summoned to the campsite in the middle of the night due to an alleged burglary at one of the caravans. What they discovered was a grisly, horrific scene: practically the entire interior of the caravan is covered in blood, due to the gruesome axe murder of an individual whose body is horribly dismembered. Through their search of the premises, the police also discovered another gruesome — yet strange — scene. A 17-year-old boy named Hugo Sand, who is found asleep on the floor…but with a severed arm that served as his pillow.
Young Hugo is promptly arrested by the police on the scene and taken into custody. However, there is one curious, yet bizarre, condition about Hugo that complicates the investigation into the case: he is a chronic sleepwalker with an uncommon form of sleepwalking that is set off by nightmares. As well, he has no memory of the crime ever happening, whether it be as the murderer or a witness.
That’s when Stockholm Police Department detective Joona Linna is called upon to take the case. He realizes the complexities of this sleepwalking murder and Hugo’s blank memory of his alleged involvement. In order to peel off the layers and unlock the mystery if Hugo commited the murder or not, Joona enlists the help of Erik Marie Bark, a longtime friend and expert hypnotist to get inside Hugo’s mind to see if he is the murderer in question.
While the first batch of hypnosis sessions don’t come up with conclusive results, more axe murders occur, with each subsequent crime done in a more bloody, brutal, savage manner that borders on sheer butchery. And with every murder, the finger keeps on pointing at Hugo, who continues to maintain his innocence. Also holding on to the firm belief of his innocence is his father Bernard, who is a prominent bestselling author, and his stepmother Agneta. As well, as a means to prove to the public that his son Hugo didn’t commit the axe murders, he plans to write a book about the entire case.
But as Joona and Erik continue to extract the truth from Hugo through hypnosis, and the denouement is starting to become much clearer towards a solution, a snow storm front from Russia will strike the eastern coast of Sweden, which will whip things around quite literally with everyone involved in the case, which also includes a revelatory twist that will make a stormy situation even stormier.
The Sleepwalker is a gripping, harrowing psychological crime thriller. It’s filled with suspense, horror, thorough detective work, plot twists, and criminology methods that meticulously examines the mind of a potential criminal, and how one’s traumatic past can motivate them to commit such violent acts towards other people.
Joona Linna is a detective who is resourceful, gritty and highly determined to solve whatever case he is presented with, no matter how gory it is, and those characteristics are prevalent throughout the book. And the brutal snowstorm that makes up the final part of the novel is a breathtaking segment that is a desperate race against time and the elements to prevent an ultra violent killer from killing again.
Lars Kepler and Joona Linna successfully continue Sweden’s tradition of producing highly readable crime mystery thrillers, and The Sleepwalker is vivid proof of that…but watch how you’re sleeping!
by Stuart Nulman
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