The Mirror Man - Lars Keppler

                         About the book 

IF YOU SEE HIS REFLECTION

IT'S ALREADY TOO LATE . . .

Five years ago, Jenny Lind was abducted on her way home from school.

Now her lifeless body is found hanging in a playground. But there is no evidence and only one witness - a man who cannot remember what he saw.

With Detective Joona Linna and the police scrambling to find a lead, another girl goes missing. And as they close in on the killer, they discover that the Mirror Man's crimes are more shocking than they ever could have imagined . . .

                      My Thoughts 

 It's no surprise that I am a big fan of Nordic Noir and I happily put Lars Keppler up there as one of the top writers in the genre. The Mirror Man is the 8th in a series but works fine as a stand-alone novel so don't let that put you off.

 The story starts with the kidnapping of a young girl (seen through her eyes) and it's a pretty brutal start. 

 Move forward 5 years and the girl is discovered hanging in a children's playground . . . and another girl goes missing 

 The only person who could be a witness is a man who lost his daughter in a tragic accident around the time and is so traumatised he can neither recall what happened or speak. He has even spent time on a psych ward. Is he witness or suspect?

 Our 'hero' in this story is detective Joona Linna of the National Crime Unit, seen as a bit of a loose cannon. He is told to stay away from the case but is he going to listen? Let's be fair, we all know he won't - what would be the fun in that. Linne believes there could be a serial killer at large and, with the help of  hypnotist Erik Maria Bark sets out to solve the case and hopefully prevent more child deaths.

 This was a pretty brutal read but as always the excellent story telling makes the gruesomeness bearable enough that it kept me up a lot later than I should have been (and I missed my bus stop one day too!).

 Highly recommended both as an individual novel and as a series 5/5*

Thanks as always to Anne Cater and Random Things Tours for inviting me onto this blogtour. Please check out the posts by the other bloggers taking part (below)