A review by athirah_idrus
Stalker: Joona Linna Series: #5 by Lars Kepler

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

 

In Stalker, Swedish police is following up on a weird homemade video that has been put up online. The video follows a woman who seems to be at home, watching TV and eating ice cream in her underwear. The weird part of the video is the angle in which it was taken. The camera appeared to be positioned from the window from outside the house and the woman in the video seemed oblivious that she was being watched, let alone being filmed in an intimate setting. Despite the strangeness of the details, what really alarmed the police was when a body was found and it turned out to be the very woman that was filmed on camera. The police needed to find the person who filmed the woman before her death – they could be a potential witness or they might just be the killer the police was looking for. 

 

A riveting read as expected, this fifth installment of the Joona Linna series has all the right ingredients for a good detective fiction novel. The book went to a very different turn than I predicted, it had solid characters and storyline, and an interesting case to follow that kept me wanting to know more until the final pages. The only reason I dropped a star rating is because while Joona Linna played a major part in solving the case, in many parts we are given the point of view of Erik Bark, the hypnotist. I don’t hate Erik’s character but I’m not exactly a fan. It was like reading a Poirot novel but he only appeared in the story for a short while which made the story less interesting because well, he is the star of the show.