The Hypnotist

Last night our book club discussed Lars Kepler's The Hypnotist.  One of the book club members who could not come to the discussion emailed me that she was "so sorry not to be part of the discussion of a book that I found to be so poorly written and a plot so haphazardly and recklessly played out."

Her opinion echoes ours to the T.  Even the one star customer reviews on Amazon outnumber the five star.  I had seen this book advertised in the NY Times Book Review and heard the author/s interview on NPR (Lars Kepler is the pen name of a husband and wife writing team), and having been a fan of the Stieg Larsson trilogy, I looked forward to another Swedish murder mystery.  Well, the plot here was not really a plot, but several sort-of plots - perhaps Lars wanted one plot and Kepler the other - that got smooshed together with events that required way too much of my suspension of disbelief.

The good news was that I did not purchase this book and that it read quickly, so I was put out of my misery sooner rather than later.  Some in our group really liked the book.  Some did not, and we had a most lively discussion, but even those who didn't like it finished all 500 pages.