The Nightmare / Lars Kepler

It seems more than a bit incongruous that Sweden, a neutral peace-loving nation, would be one of the world’s top weapons producers and exporters. The weapons industry is the context for this latest thriller from the Swedish couple writing under the pseudonym Lars Kepler. It’s a chase from start to finish when a contract killer is hired to hunt down peace activist Penelope Fernandez when she inadvertently finds herself in an intrigue involving government officials and illegal weapons exports to Sudan. At first she and her boyfriend are relentlessly hunted on a remote island in the Stockholm archipelago (with a very strange stop at the summer house of a faded TV personality who tries to involve them in sex games… hunh?), then the chase switches to Stockholm (with an exciting shoot-out at Östermalms market hall and the German embassy near Gärdet).

The translation is a little spotty-- there were some odd lexical choices. A main theme which comes up again and again is to “reap your nightmare”. Okay, I understand it, it’s probably a direct translation from Swedish, but would it maybe have been better to say in English “realize your worst nightmare” or “live your worst nightmare?” Here’s an example of another unwieldy translation—“She had fashioned an elaborate arrangement of her hair on the back of her neck, even sprayed it heavily to keep it in place, but now it looks just right.” (okay, so maybe the authors and editors are partially responsible for that mess, and I shouldn’t blame the translator entirely, but...). Translations always present challenges, but I have read some excellent translations from Swedish-- Marlaine Delargy’s translation of Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist, for example, comes to mind. For some reason the translator of The Nightmare was changed from previous Lars Kepler title The Hypnotist, which I think was to the detriment of this new title.

The Nightmare reads more like a Robert Ludlum thriller rather than a Thomas Harris type novel like Silence of the Lambs or Red Dragon which The Hypnotist seemed to resemble a bit more. And Joona Linna just didn’t seem to play as integral a role in this one. Yes, he was always darting about and barking orders in his funny Finland-Swedish accent, but I still didn’t think his character was as central in this book, which was unfortunate. I enjoyed The Hypnotist, and while The Nightmare was a diversion, it definitely wasn’t as well-crafted.

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