“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.”

Hello and welcome to damppebbles. Today I am delighted to share my review of Mimik by Sebastian Fitzek. Mimik is published by Aries Fiction today (that’s Thursday 4th December 2025) and is available in paperback and digital formats. I chose to read a free eARC of Mimik but that has in no way influenced my review.

This is not the first Sebastian Fitzek novel I have read. I’ve been a fan now for over ten years. How do I know this? I remember reading The Eye Collector when I was in the hospital waiting to have my second child (who is eleven years old!). I’ve read a number of this author’s other books but most of them were pre-blog, so I don’t have any reviews to share with you. Other than this review of The Nightwalker and this one of Seat 7A. The one thing you can always guarantee with a Sebastian Fitzek novel is that it will be highly entertaining throughout, with twists and turns galore.

Hannah Herbst studies your face. She notes the tiny movements, the muscle spasms, the way your eyes move, and she immediately knows whether you’re lying, whether you’re hiding something, what’s going on inside your head. She knows your secrets, and you can’t lie to her. But Hannah has a rare condition where, when given an anaesthetic, she completely loses her memory. Awakening in a hotel room with a strange man, the situation she’s in appears to be beyond dire. He tells her that a terrible crime has been committed. Most of her family has been killed, her young son escaped but his whereabouts are unknown. The police know who committed the atrocity because they have a confession on video. The man shows Hannah the video, but it can’t be true. Her eyes do not believe what she sees. The woman in the video is Hannah. What has she done? She can’t recall the murders, the confession, or where her son, Paul, is…?

Mimik is a rip-roaring, non-stop, highly entertaining psychological thriller from an author who always delivers. Fitzek takes his readers on a journey. A journey where you will encounter things you expect, and things you really, really won’t expect. Yes, this author’s books can be a little bit bonkers in part, but that’s kind of the reason why I enjoy Fitzek’s storytelling. Returning to his books time and time again. Mimik opens with a shocking prologue. The situation the characters were in was so different, so unusual, that it took me a moment or two to catch up. Is what I think is happening, REALLY happening? Yes, yes it is. We then skip forward twenty-seven years and meet Hannah Herbst arriving at her son’s kindergarten to collect him early. But Hannah’s spidey senses tell her something is very wrong. Another leap in time takes us to Hannah, post-op, waking up in a hotel room with no memory of how she got there, nor who the man in the room with her is. There are a number of threads that don’t necessarily seem connected, but everything makes perfect sense and is tied up beautifully in the end.

Would I recommend this book? I would, yes. Mimik is a clever, multi-layered thriller with a devilishly good twist in the tale. A highly unreliable narrator leads the reader down a path of uncertainty, wrong turns and convincing lies. I found myself doubting whether the truth, the real truth, would ever be uncovered. You do get there in the end, and it’s well worth waiting for! The characters are interesting but not particularly likeable. I did, of course, feel a little sorry for Hannah. Is she being told the whole truth? Did she really kill her family in cold blood? Was the confession real? You can’t be sure of anything in Mimik. I found myself doubting everything and everyone, and I loved it! All in all, a gripping, engaging thriller with a perfect twist. Another cracking book from Sebastian Fitzek. Dark, tense and packed full of emotion. Recommended.

I chose to read and review a free eARC of Mimik. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.

Mimik by Sebastian Fitzek was published in the UK by Aries Fiction on 4th December 2025 and is available in paperback and digital formats (please note, the following links are affiliate links which means I receive a small percentage of the purchase price at no extra cost to you): | amazon.co.uk | Waterstones | bookshop.org | Goodreads | damppebbles bookshop.org shop | damppebbles amazon.co.uk shop | damppebbles amazon.com shop |

Sebastian Fitzek is the most successful German bestselling author, whose works have sold more than 19 million copies and have been published in more than 36 countries. He began his career in radio, later studying law and gaining a doctorate in copyright law. In 2006, he published his first psychological thriller “Therapy”, which became a bestseller, as did all subsequent books. Between 2014 and 2021, Sebastian Fitzek was the most successful German author of the year six times.

Many of his books have been successfully adapted for film and television series, such as “Therapy” (Prime Video) as a six-part mini-series, which immediately became the number one most-watched German-language series and TOP 10 hit in thirty countries for several weeks, including the USA. Sebastian Fitzek is also known for his spectacular book launches, which he stages as shows and fills Germany’s largest arenas with.

He lives with his family in Berlin.