Psychological mystery in the audio book: A true crime case causes a stir

Young Anna Ogilvy is sleeping. Soundly. For four years. Since the night she was kicked away, a bloody kitchen knife found in her hand, next to the bodies of her two best friends. For some, “Anna O” is a cold-blooded murderer. Others believe in her innocence. True crime at its finest!

“I’m sorry. I think I killed her.” A sentence sent by Anna Ogilvy in her family’s WhatsApp group. A sentence that then went viral and was exploited by the media. The reason: Anna was found next to the bodies of her two best friends. They were murdered, each stabbed ten times with a kitchen knife. That is exactly what is still in Anna’s hand, her clothes are dripping with blood. At first glance, the matter is clear. But Anna is sleeping. Soundly. And has been for four years now.

Her case, the case of Anna O., has since become famous. Opinions are divided in the public and tempers flare at the mention of her name. Is she guilty? Or perhaps the victim of a plot? She herself cannot answer the question. But the Ministry of Justice wants her to do so as soon as possible so that peace can finally be restored. In the sleep laboratory “The Abbey”, Dr. Benedict Prince, a psychologist and expert on crimes committed in sleep, is to wake up “Sleeping Beauty” Anna O.

Sleeping Beauty with a twist

Of course, it would be too easy with a kiss. Even if Ben’s last name, Prince, suggests that. The problem: There are cases in which “long-term sleepers”, sometimes after decades, have woken up again. But it was always pure coincidence. There is no proven procedure for such cases in practice, only in theory. This is precisely where Prince’s strength lies, and now he can test his research approach in practice.

But Prince is being watched: by Harriet, the nurse who has been caring for Anna O. for years; by his boss and the Ministry of Justice; his ex-wife Clara, who was the first on the scene as a detective; by Anna’s mother Emily, a formerly influential politician with connections to the very top; by Anna’s father, a financial magnate who is not very strict about marital fidelity; by a blogger who has secret notes on Anna, and by the mysterious patient X.

It was he who, as a journalist and editor of her magazine “Elementary”, which she launched with the two now dead friends, was on Anna’s trail. Patient X, the key to a murder case that shook the country in 1999 when Susan Turner, the “Monster of Stockwell”, is said to have stabbed her two stepchildren to death with a knife while she herself was sleeping. She ended up in a psychiatric hospital and killed herself there.

Psychological puzzle

Lots of material, lots of unanswered questions and the tricky search for the one, ultimate answer: that’s what listeners get from Matthew Blake’s thriller “Anna O.”. It has four voices – Oliver Siebeck, Anne Düe, Vera Teltz and Tanja Geke, all professionals in the audiobook narration genre – but that’s not the only reason it stays in your head. It’s the topic itself that stirs things up: can you commit crimes while you sleep, or even kill someone? Are you even aware of it? Psychology for advanced learners, but presented in a way that everyone can understand – that’s what the author can claim to be his motto. Here a little digression on Sigmund Freud, there a look into the reasons behind Truman Capote’s masterpiece “In Cold Blood.” Blake knows what he’s doing, how he draws the listener ever deeper into the plot and into the darkest corners of a confused mind.

He jumps back and forth between the characters, creating a narrative density and depth that encourages you to listen to the twelve-and-a-half-hour audiobook in one go. Blake also throws in a flashback, which at first glance provides more clarity for the listener, but at second glance puts you on a false trail. Until the end of the work, published by S. Fischer and Argon, you don’t know how to answer the question of Anna O.’s guilt. Only at the very last minute does Blake open the door behind which the answer to the question lies. And believe me, you didn’t see it coming…