Hannah can always spot a killer. Until she looks in the mirror.
Hannah Herbst is Germany’s most experienced facial resonance expert. She can successfully ‘read’ a suspect through a tiny twitch of the lip or the flicker of a pupil. As a consultant to the police, she has already helped convict a number of violent criminals.
Struggling with the effects of memory loss after an operation, Hannah is confronted with the most terrible case of her career: a woman has confessed on video to brutally murdering every member of her family, except for her young son.
When the woman manages to escape from prison, the fear is she will go after the rest of her family… Only Hannah can tell if the video actually holds the truth.
There is just one problem: the woman in the video is Hannah herself.
Summary
It’s finally time to write a review I’ve been putting off for a long time. A few months ago, a friend lent me a few books to put on my newly built decorative shelf. MIMIK by German author Sebastian Fitzek was the first book I read from said collection. Fitzek is a relatively famous author, as I’ve learned while researching the book after finishing it. Several of his books were bestsellers that have been translated into English over time, and MIMIK with its 2025 translation is no longer an exception. Personally, though, I read the original version in German.
MIMIK, named after the German word for facial resonance, follows Hannah Herbst, a facial resonance expert with a cartoonishly German name. Hannah has a few problems. First, she is facing serious memory loss after undergoing a medical procedure. Second, she has a strong fear of looking at her own reflection. Both of these unlikely circumstances come to haunt her when a video surfaces of what looks to be Hannah herself admitting to murder during a police interrogation.
Review
At this point, after having read a few books, I have to admit that the story summary for this book sounds intriguing, if a bit contrived. It’s the kind of book that, if I were looking for a thriller, I’d probably pick up after hearing the hooks summarised in a YouTube video.
After reading it, though, it left me with an immensely sour taste in my mouth and almost convinced me that reading isn’t for me after all. Because there is one massive, glaring problem with this book: The entire middle section.
After sitting on it for a few months now, I can concede that the ending to MIMIK is good. The last 50 pages of the book are genuinely filled with exciting plot developments, revelations, subversions of expectation and a satisfying conclusion. The only problem is: The book isn’t 50 pages long. It’s 370 pages long. And the 300 pages preceding that satisfying last stretch are unfortunately some of the most boring material I’ve read in a fiction novel.
About 40 pages into the book, the protagonist ends up in a predicament. It’s interesting at first, but quickly loses its lustre because the circumstances just… don’t really change or evolve over the remainder of the book. And during that entire section, up until all the way to the ending, the plot progresses so, so slowly. By the end, even though the ending of the book was honestly pretty interesting, I just couldn’t bring myself to care anymore. And I just don’t buy into the argument that these early sections are necessary to facilitate the ending, after having read books like Blood Over Bright Haven or The Raven Scholar that manage to remain compelling over a similar, if not longer page count.
Final Review
For the reasons above, I am rating MIMIK 2 out of 5 stars. The idea and the last stretch are okay, which prevents it from bombing completely, but when reading a thriller, I shouldn’t feel bored for the majority of the experience. I unfortunately don’t think I will be consciously picking up Fitzek novels in the future if they follow a similar progression of suspense. I could maybe see this book working as an audiobook, if you are more interested in the high-level story than the fine details, but generally wouldn’t recommend it to friends.