A good thriller is often described as ‘the stuff of nightmares’ but in Lars Kepler’s The Sleepwalker that is literally the case.
For seventeen-year-old Hugo, sleep is a troubled thing. He suffers from severe somnambulism, or sleepwalking. When undergoing an episode his sleepwalking is accompanied by vivid nightmares of him running to escape a murderous gang. On waking, however, he remembers little about what he did while sleepwalking, the nightmare masking any memory.
It’s a shock therefore for Hugo to be woken by armed police in the middle of a gruesome murder scene. A man has been brutally dismembered by axe and Hugo is discovered asleep at the blood-soaked scene, a severed arm as a pillow. Could the teen really have carried out such a frenzied attack while asleep?
Soon though the body count begins to rise, and with Hugo in custody and therefore unable to have committed the latest crimes it looks like the police have the wrong man and a serial killer is on the loose.
For Detective Superintendent Joona Linna it’s a race against time to try and stop the killer before both the killer strikes again and a fierce winter storm sets in.
Despite The Sleepwalker being the tenth instalment of the Joona Linna series, the Swedish detective isn’t the focus of attention for much of the plot here. Instead, the two authors behind the Lars Kepler pen name spend much time exploring Hugo’s sleep issues and the impact it has on both him and his family. It’s a trauma that has stretched back since childhood, not helped by a fractious relationship with his author father, an absent mother and his father’s new partner.
The medical and scientific background to Hugo’s sleepwalking is explored in depth but it never feels burdensome, more a tool to help explain this complex character.
Nightmares become a recurring theme, and this isn’t a book for the squeamish. Sex and violence play out in graphic detail, with the husband and wife writing partnership doesn’t pull any punches. We’re thrown deep into the darkest corners of human depravity but it’s handled with skill that it drives the plot forward without seeming gratuitous.
It’s a lengthy work, spanning over 500 pages, but it doesn’t feel it. From the off it’s a fast pace that both demands attention and rewards that attention in equal measure. As axe blow by axe blow falls we’re hooked into this gripping, twisting and meticulously plotted tale. Alice Menzies taut translation keeps the pace high, no mean feat in a story so reliant on science and medicine to provide the factual heartbeat.
This may be the tenth instalment in their highly successful series, but it’s testament to their storytelling skill that even a reader coming to this book first would find it an easy read. Yes of course, long term followers of Joona Linna will draw a deeper understanding of this darkly complex police officer, and elements of the previous instalment The Spider, follow on here, but it’s by no means a prerequisite to have read the previous nine volumes to enjoy this thrilling examination of the nightmares inside a tortured brain.
A true page turner, this latest collaboration proves that two writers are better than one when leading us through the darkest of nightmares.
The Sleepwalker by Lars Kepler, translated by Alice Menzies is published by Zaffre
