I am always excited and a little terrified when a new Kepler comes out. You don't have to read them in order as you get a good back story, but if you are a fan of Joona Linna, this is a crazy read. A youtube clip gets sent to the police, a stalker appears to want them to catch him as he films a woman who will be killed within a day of the upload. As the police start looking into the similar cases years ago only one stands out, but the convicted killer is still sectioned. Could they be dealing with a copycat? Stalking is a scary crime, but as the police get more involved more crimes appear to be involved including drugs, murder and a sinister place called The Zone. Joona Linna is back from the dead and can see between the lines whilst assisting the case he finds his psychiatrist friend is too involved for all the wrong reasons. At breakneck speed we have a chase to the end where Joona uses brute force from his training to get critical information. This is a great read, gritty and gory at times but I was not disappointed. Oh Joona, what have you done?

Having not read any other books in the series I feared there may be a lack in character development, however I was pleasantly surprised. The plot was brilliant and well executed with a sensational ending. I did however feel the book could have been shorter and found myself not getting properly hooked until 2/3 of the way in.

Someone is stalking people in their homes. This scandi-noir crime novel is a dark and chilling thriller that really ramps up the tension and is not a book to read on a dark night when you are alone and the wind is whistling outside. This is the 5th book in the Joona Linna series, and works OK as a standalone novel, though I did wish I had read the others in the series to understand the background to Joona Linna. Because this is not a straightforward police procedural/psychological thriller. A heavily pregnant DS Margot Silverman is leading the National Criminal Investigation Division hunt for a serial killer who films his victims and uploads the films to YouTube. In this hunt she is joined by former Police Detective Joona Linna and Psychologist Erik Maria Bark. This gives us an ex-policeman and a rogue psychologist, both with expert knowledge of this type of killer, but, for their own reasons, working both inside and outside the scope of the formal police investigation. This allows the author some licence in the types of investigative procedures used, and it’s fair to say some of their procedures are less than orthodox. For Joona, it is an especially difficult time. He has just come out of hiding and has recently allowed his daughter to go and study abroad. This has left him completely rootless, with no money and no home. But once he hears the details of this case, he is compelled to stay and look into it – and he becomes convinced that only he can find and catch the perpetrator. For Eric Bark, the case is more than an obsession. A link to a previous case he was involved him has made him re-think whether he should have told the police all he knew about the killer who is now safely locked up in a psychiatric hospital. As he begins a new relationship, his conscience troubles him and he must find out once and for all whether he has helped to convict the right man. Although I did enjoy this, as well as finding it very chilling and indeed quite harrowing in places, for me the plot didn’t quite hang together well enough. There were moments when I had to suspend my disbelief, and others, such as a murder of a colleague’s wife, when I felt that this event had simply been skated over. In the end, I felt that the book could have benefitted from a more judicious edit, though I still enjoyed it. I’d have liked more of the D.S. Silverman character too. She was somewhat overshadowed by Linna, yet her doggedness and determination clearly make her a cop to be reckoned with.

For me whilst the idea was interesting it was far too long and repetitive and the writing style grating - gave up