The Nightmare by Lars Kepler

Tonight, I finished listening to the unabridged version of The Nightmare by Lars Kepler and read by Mark Bramhall. 

Lars Kepler is the pseudonym for Swedish literary duo,  Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril.

I thought that Mark Bramhall did an excellent job of narrating The Nightmare by Lars Kepler. A good narrator and a good quality audio production always makes listening to a book so much more enjoyable than if a narrator is a bad one or if the audio production is poorly done.

The Nightmare, itself, is a mystery novel that is the second novel in a series to feature detective inspector Joona Linna. I liked the character of Joona Linna quite a bit.

As far as my thoughts about The Nightmare, I thought it had a lot of layers to it and some intriguing characters and plot twists... But, I thought it was a bit drawn out in parts. I thought that The Nightmare could have been a shorter novel than it is in its current state.

I also thought that the bad guy was evil, no doubt about it, but couldn't quite find him any scarier than any other bad guy... And without going into all the details, the bad guy creates a 'nightmare/worst case scenario' type of contract between himself and those he was trying to strong arm,  and this scenario really didn't seem all that scary because of the way the authors describe it.

There's also a scene where a couple in the novel is stranded on an island and they are being chased by a hit-man out to kill them. Sure it's a scary scene/scenario. BUT I found it difficult to believe that this couple couldn't find help from others on the island sooner than they did... And the guy who does eventually help them out, is a bit sick and twisted himself... It was just a bit odd/non-realistic to have the situation play out the way it did.

So, in some ways, there was quite a bit I liked about The Nightmare, but in other ways there were things that I didn't resonate with me with regards to The Nightmare.

I also enjoyed the author interview at the end of The Nightmare itself, even if the audio quality wasn't so good and the interview ended somewhat abruptly.

The following is a summary for The Nightmare by Lars Kepler from Goodreads:

Lars Kepler returns with a piercing, bestselling sequel to The Hypnotist.

After spellbinding audiences in The Hypnotist, Detective Inspector Joona Linna is back in The Nightmare, an internationally bestselling Swedish thriller published to critical acclaim in dozens of countries. As the Swedish newspaper Arbetarbladet put it, "The reader is ready to sell his own soul for the opportunity to read this book without interruption, in one sitting."

On a summer night, police recover the body of a young woman from an abandoned pleasure boat drifting around the Stockholm archipelago. Her lungs are filled with brackish water, and the forensics team is sure that she drowned. Why, then, is the pleasure boat still afloat, and why are there no traces of water on her clothes or body?
The next day, a man turns up dead in his state apartment in Stockholm, hanging from a lamp hook. All signs point to suicide, but the room has a high ceiling, and there's not a single piece of furniture around--nothing to climb on.

Joona Linna begins to piece together the two mysteries, but the logistics are a mere prelude to a dizzying and dangerous course of events. At its core, the most frightening aspect of The Nightmare isn't its gruesome crimes--it's the dark psychology of its characters, who show us how blind we are to our own motives.

I am giving The Nightmare by Lars Kepler a rating of 3 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!!