The Mind's Eye

Title: The Mind’s Eye

Author: Hakan Nesser

Number of pages: 279

Started: 23 April 2012

Finished: 25 April 2012

Opening words:

He woke up and was unable to remember his name.

His pains were legion. Shafts of fire whirled around in his head and throat, his stomach and chest. He tried to swallow, but it remained an attempt. His tongue was glued to his palate. Burning, smoldering.

His eyes were throbbing. Threatening to grow out of their sockets.

It’s like being born, he thought. I’m not a person. Merely a mass of suffering.

Plot summary:

Janek Mitter stumbles into his bathroom one morning after a night of heavy drinking, to find his beautiful young wife, Eva, floating dead in the bath. She has been brutally murdered. Yet even during his trial Mitter cannot summon a single memory of attacking Eva, nor a clue as to who could have killed her if he had not. Only once he has been convicted and locked away in an asylum for the criminally insane does he have a snatch of insight – but is it too late? Drawing a blank after exhaustive interviews, Chief Inspector Van Veeteren remains convinced that something, or someone, in the dead woman’s life has caused these tragic events. But the reasons for her speedy remarriage have died with her. And as he delves even deeper, Van Veeteren realizes that the past never stops haunting the present…

What I thought:

I am not sure what I made of this book.  I feel as though I should like this book (and series) more.  Somehow the characters don’t quite come to life though, and the plots whilst having intriguing elements to them were never really engaging.  I wanted this book to be better than it was, but somehow it lacked that element which would make it a good book.