We’re back in Sweden, at the shortest time of the year, when daylight is dim at 10 in the morning and gone by mid-afternoon. An appropriately bleak time of the year for yet another bleak, bloody, noir Swedish thriller. And there’s blood – lots of it, and obviously the work of a deranged serial killer. A doctor who is an expert in hypnosis, but has foresworn it ten years earlier after being accused by a patient of malpractice of the most serious kind, is convinced by Joona Linna, the lead detective in the case, to try it one more time on the lone survivor of a family that has been slain. Part of the premise of the book, that troubled people who suffered abuse as children could be helped by "group hypnosis," sort of like group therapy but with counting down and “you are very sleepy…” seemed unbelievable from the outset. That this didn’t end well, either ten years previously or in the present of the novel, wasn’t all that surprising. The book is no Girl with the dragon tattoo, on whose coattails it is obviously riding, and none of the characters really engage you. This is the last time I go by a glowing full page ad in the NY Times Book Review as a valid recommendation. Don’t waste your time on this long depressing book. 503 pp.
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