I wish someone would hypnotize me and erase the memory of reading this book. 
 OK, it isn't that bad from a writing standpoint and basic premise, but it had a lot of buzz that I didn't think it came close to living up to. Slapping that "The Next Stieg Larsson!"* label on any new Swedish thriller is probably automatic at this point, but it sets up a reader up for disappointment when there's no character anywhere near as interesting as Lisbeth Salander around. Extra disappointing when most of the characters are so unlikable that you start rooting for the serial killer. Throw in a plot that disregards logic whenever it's convenient to try and introduce some tension into a story, and this ended up as a thriller that wasted a pretty decent set-up. 
 *Lars Kepler is actually a pseudonym for a husband & wife writing team. 
 Erik Maria Bark used to be a psychiatrist who was considered one of the best hypnotists in Sweden, but he no longer practices hypnotism and now works as a medical doctor. Erik is called to the hospital in the middle of the night by police detective Joona Linna to examine a teenage boy who has been repeatedly stabbed and was found at a crime scene where most of his family was brutally murdered. 
 Linna believes that the boy's missing sister may also be in danger, but he's too badly injured to question via normal methods so Linna wants Bark to hypnotize him. Bark initially refuses, but eventually he decides to put the boy under and try to get critical information about the crime and the location of the sister. The shocking revelations that come out while the boy is hypnotized lead to a series of events that threaten Bark and his family. This pushes the strained marriage of Bark and his wife Simone to the breaking point and also further alienates their son Benjamin who suffers from a rare blood disease. 
 Crime thrillers and realistic police procedures don't always mix, but they should usually have at least a nodding acquaintance. Not so much here. For example, Linna immediately decides that the only way to find the missing sister is to hypnotize the injured boy even though he's half dead. Uh....as I understand it, the police usually have other resources to call on when they look for people other than browbeating former hypnotists into putting the whammy on critically injured patients. Later on the police have good reason to think that Bark is in danger, but he's turned off his phone. Linna just leaves him a series of voice mails instead of sending cops to his house to check up on him. "Ah, fuck it. I'm sure he'll be fine. Why bother wasting gas to look in on him?" 
 There's an even more baffling piece. (view spoiler)[ After Bark's son is kidnapped from his home and his wife is drugged, the cops are only interested when they think the escaped killer may be involved. But they never send the forensic techs to the house or interview Simone. Later after they've decided the killer wasn't involved, Erik basically has to beg Linna to get involved in the search for his son because they act like Benjamin just ran away even though Simone witnessed him being taken from the house, and they have lab tests showing that a powerful drug was used on her. So I guess the Swedish cops just don't get that excited about teenage boys getting taken out of their beds. Unless they think a mass murderer was the kidnapper. Ah, even then they won't get that excited about it and put the kid's picture on TV or anything like that. 
 Oh, and I guess it's also common police procedure to let the parents of kidnapped children just run around with the cops while they interview people and look for clues. No chance that anything bad could happen with that like running into a serial killer in a creepy basement or finding a grave that sends them into a panic when they think it's their kid. Wait. That's exactly what does happen. Well, shit, it's not like the cops are doing much unless Erik or Simone basically drag them someplace to look into any leads anyhow. (hide spoiler)] 
 The plot takes a weird twist halfway through that doesn't end up going anywhere close to where it seems like it would originally. Ordinarily, I'd say that's a good thing, but the first half of the book sets you up to think one thing, and then there's a new development completely out of left field. It doesn't feel organic or earned, it just feels like a cheat. 
 Even worse than the logic gaps and bullshit plot twists are the characters. Linna isn't too bad, just kind of a bland stubborn cop. Bark comes across as kind of an oblivious arrogant ass with a pill addiction who will instantly dismiss his wife's claims that someone was in their apartment the previous night when he was too whacked on drugs to know if a marching band had walked through. The kid Benjamin also seems like kind of whiney little prick, but at least he has excuses like asshole parents and a blood disease. 
 Worst of all is Simone. She's generally shrill, hysterical, stupid and overall just kind of a bitch. Bark had a brief affair ten years before, and she never really forgave him for it. When he is called out in the middle of the night by Linna at the beginning of the book, she gets instantly suspicious even though Bark is a doctor who works at an emergency room. A cell phone mix-up makes her think that he is cheating on her again, and she begins hurling accusations at Bark without ever once explaining why. This is the kind of shit I hate in stories because it's manufactured drama that could have easily been solved with a rational five minute conversation, but instead becomes a continuing point of tension because Simone would rather pitch a fit than explain anything. 
 Simone commits even worse offenses. (view spoiler)[After Benjamin is kidnapped, Bark is trying to calm her down so they can start working with the police. Instead, Simone launches into another round of accusations that Erik is cheating on her and drives him out of the house by insisting on calling her father, a retired cop who hates Erik. Then, she proceeds to tell everyone that asks about her son that she and Erik are 'separated', as if they're just having marital problems and their only son hasn't been kidnapped. 
 And then, Miss I-Know-You're-Having-An-Affair takes time out for the hunt for her son to pop down to her gallery and start sleeping with an artist she's been working with. It's presented as some kind of desperation to escape her problems, but I can't feel bad for this nutjob who has spent half the book screaming at her husband about his imagined infidelity and then decides to start boinking someone else while her kid is missing. Jesus wept, but I hated this woman. It would have been one thing if this was some kind of realistic character based story about the impact of a child abduction on a shaky marriage, but this is most certainly a schlock crime thriller so it just comes across as fucked up on epic scale. (hide spoiler)] 
 All in all, this seems like a couple of Swedish writers looking to hop on the Stieg Larsson gravy train came up a couple of decent ideas, but then botched it by trying to get too cute with their plot and making their main characters self-absorbed asshats.