Books Read: Stalker by Lars Kepler

The Swedish National Crime Unit receives a video of a young woman in her home, clearly unaware that she's being watched. Soon after the tape is received, the woman's body is found horrifically mutilated. With the arrival of the next, similar video, the police understand that the killer is toying with them, warning of a new victim, knowing there's nothing they can do. Detective Margot Silverman is put in charge of the investigation, and soon asks Detective Joona Linna for help. Linna, in turn, recruits Erik Maria Bark, the hypnotist and expert in trauma, with whom Linna's worked before. Bark is leery of forcing people to give up their secrets. But this time, Bark is the one hiding things. 

Years before, he had put a man away for an eerily similar crime, and now he's beginning to think that an innocent man may be behind bars--and a serial killer still on the loose...

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I'd like to thank Abby at Knopf Publicity for inviting me to be part of the blog tour to celebrate the US publication of Stalker and for my ecopy which I received to review via NetGalley.

Stalker is the fifth book in the Joona Linna series by the husband and wife duo who write under the pseudonym Lars Kepler.  I'm always intrigued by writing collaborations as to how they share the workload but at the same time it must be great to have someone working alongside you to brainstorm ideas as you're writing but can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to work with your real life partner.

Having never read a book by this writing duo I had nothing to compare it to so was going into their writing with fresh eyes although I do feel a little background of the characters might have benefited me, especially in connection with what had happened previously with Joona Linna, but still it was readable on its own merit.  As the title suggests the premise of this novel is of someone who is watching their victims, recording their every movement and posting clips of them before killing them.

My heart was literally in my mouth as I was reading the first few chapters and could sense the fear and panic that Susanna must have felt when she realises that she's not alone in her house and her husband is stuck on an airplane and won't be home for hours.  Although sadly for her this was not an opportunist robbery as she first thought and she ultimately pays the price for not locking a door.  The authors do a great job of setting the scene that it almost feels like a movie playing out before your eyes... and a bit like a crime drama on your screen sometimes a little too gruesome reading at times.

This really was a complex case for heavily pregnant detective Margot Silverman which will take us a journey full of red herrings, deeply hidden secrets, old cases (which is where regulars of the series may get more benefit than a newcomer to the series) as well as the reappearance of Joona Linna. The only thing that was missing for me personally is that I would have also like to explore the psychology of stalkers a bit more and get into their mindset and see what makes them tick and do the things they do.

I will admit that it was probably not such a good idea to read this book late into the night as, despite living in a first floor flat with a wooden walkway to the front door so I would hear anyone approaching, every creak or sound in my flat freaked the living daylights out of me even though I knew there was no possibility that anyone could have gotten in!

Despite its length at over 500 pages, it didn't feel like a particularly long read as the short chapter format and pacing meant that I found myself racing through the pages, although I did find the pace slowed considerably in the middle section until it picked up again and we reached the shocking conclusion and the killer was revealed. Having enjoyed, and it feels so wrong to describe this in that way considering the subject matter, my first experience of Lars Kepler's writing I now need to try and find more hours in the day to go back and read the previous four books in the series.