Sleepwalker (Bohjalian) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Sex, secrets and the mysteries of sleep: These are the provocative ingredients in Chris Bohjalian’s spooky thriller The Sleepwalker. It’s a dark, Hitchcockian novel… Trust me, you will not be able to stop thinking about it days after you finish reading this book.
Carol Memmott - Washington Post


Great mystery writers, like great magicians, have the ability to hide the truth that’s right before your eyes. Best-selling novelist Chris Bohjalian is at the full power of his literary legerdemain in his newest book, The Sleepwalker…. Bohjalian teases and tantalizes the reader…. Masterful plotting evokes a magician who distracts his audience to look this way, not that way. The ending will have the reader rereading for missed clues. The Sleepwalker is Bohjalian at his best: a creepily compelling topic and an illusionist’s skill at tightening the tension. This is a novel worth losing sleep over.
Patty Rhule - USA Today
 

Literary and compelling, a combination so rare I’m tempted to apply for federal intervention.... I hesitate to say more, because to know too much may spoil the fun of discovery. Rest assured the denouement is perfect. This is Bohjalian at his very best.
Curt Shleier - Seattle Times


A perfectly crafted surprise ending…. Bohjalian succeeds in making us accomplices in a dark world we never knew existed.
Laura Patten - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel


After a chronic sleepwalker goes missing, the general consensus is accidental death. But nothing is what it seems in this gripping mystery.
Cosmopolitan


[A] stylish fusion of mystery and domestic thriller.... Powered by brilliantly rendered characters, an intriguing topic (parasomnia), and a darkly lyrical...this novel has only one weak point—its highly improbable conclusion, which may leave readers unsatisfied.
Publishers Weekly


It takes unexpected answers to solve this mystery. Bohjalian’s latest will captivate readers who crave an edge-of-your-seat page-turner they can’t put down.  —Susan Carr
Library Journal


Annalee Ahlberg…is never seen again…. Bohjalian raises essential questions of identity and heredity, sexuality and desire, bringing the Ahlberg family conundrum into focus with a didn’t-see-that-one-coming powerhouse ending. —Carol Haggas
Booklist


The problem with the novel is primarily one of shape. The first two-thirds of the book are spent wondering whether Annalee is missing or dead.... [T]he only reason the ending is a surprise is because...[of] red herrings. Sensational subject matter aside, this thriller is a sleeper.
Kirkus Reviews