The Nightwalker by best-selling German thriller writer Sebastian Fitzek, is a psychotic mind trip you won't forget. Fitzek does an impressive job balancing the dark world of night terrors and a gruesome reality neither the protagonist nor you will see coming. Pay attention because it starts on page one and does. not. let. up.
Leon had experienced disturbing sleep habits in his youth, but with the help of a therapist, thought they were over. He was wrong - he can no longer tell when he is lucid or dreaming. The shocking evidence shows he is active while asleep - he wakes to find his wife Natalie badly beaten, crying, and leaving him. Could he have such violent tendencies? He decides to wear a motion-activated camera over the next few days to record his nocturnal movements. In the morning he finds himself covered in dirt, and the recorded footage on his laptop shows him, while asleep, slide a bedroom wardrobe aside to reveal a concealed door. He discovers it is not a figment of a dream; there is actually a door, and behind it, a long shaft with rungs leading down into a dark maze of tunnels, although he lives on the third floor. You might think he is dreaming, or he was awake, or delusional, or this is a metaphor for his subconscious, or the search for Natalie a search for himself, for how could this be possible. He becomes convinced his wife has been trapped in a secret room he must rescue her from - he may be right. There is proof from friends and neighbours she is fine and just needed a few days away - they may be right. The police arrive with photo evidence his wife met a tortured death at his hand - they may be right. The tunnels snake through all the apartments, sometimes with access, sometimes with two-way mirrors - might be right also. That he finds - while both awake and asleep - numeric codes and overlapping clues to solve her disappearance must show he is having a psychotic breakdown - maybe so. But, what if every theory we have about Leon was exactly the opposite?! If this seems like a lot of story, I am just scratching the surface.
Fitzek juggles so many open possibilities, it's like a choose-your-own-adventure where all realities meld together. Impressive he balances it all. I thought Leon lost his mind until a neighbour mentioned how the building itself seemed to watch them, every previous tenant met with tragedy or simply disappeared. Is the building itself a magnetic force for evil? Could be. The gruesome in this thriller is appropriate (cockroaches and eye gouges), but I will say the fate and torture (dreamt or not) of Natalie is really dark. Just a note for those who don't like grim and creepy; this is completely grim and creepy.
Fitzek literally begins with a nightmare and the pace does not let up. I read it straight through in a day. So intricate, I will seek out his other novels. He has a clever way of dropping cliffhangers that keep the pages turning. If you read like me, you'll want to try to solve this mystery, but it twists a few too many times to figure out (not all successful, he throws a few quick ones in at the end that let me down, but don't worry, it quickly turns again) right up to the last page.
Fitzek is one of the most successful writers in Germany; His first book, Therapy in 2006, knocked The Da Vinci Code from the #1 position
Complex, labyrinthine, original, surreal, breathtaking.
Sounds like I am recommending it, and I am - but not for everyone.
2017 / Hardcover / 333 pages
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