BLOG TOUR / REVIEW / Q&A The Sandman by Lars Kepler @aaknopf @crimebythebook #larskepler
The Sandman
by Lars Kepler
Thanks so much to Knopf Publicity for this copy! Am honored to be a part of the blog tour!
This is an absolute must read for thriller fans. GET IN!
Continue below for a synopsis, my review, author info and a Q&A. 💖
Publisher: Knopf
Published: March 6, 2018
Hardcover
464 Pages
Series: Joona Linna #4
Genres: Nordic Noir, Thriller, Crime Fiction
The #1 internationally best-selling thriller from the
author of The Hypnotist tells the chilling story of a
manipulative serial killer and the two brilliant police agents who must try to
beat him at his own game.
Late one night, outside Stockholm, Mikael Kohler-Frost is found wandering. Thirteen years earlier, he went missing along with his younger sister. They were long thought to have been victims of Sweden's most notorious serial killer, Jurek Walter, now serving a life sentence in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. Now Mikael tells the police that his sister is still alive and being held by someone he knows only as the Sandman. Years ago, Detective Inspector Joona Linna made an excruciating personal sacrifice to ensure Jurek's capture. He is keenly aware of what this killer is capable of, and now he is certain that Jurek has an accomplice. He knows that any chance of rescuing Mikael's sister depends on getting Jurek to talk, and that the only agent capable of this is Inspector Saga Bauer, a twenty-seven-year-old prodigy. She will have to go under deep cover in the psychiatric ward where Jurek is imprisoned, and she will have to find a way to get to the psychopath before it's too late--and before he gets inside her head.
Late one night, outside Stockholm, Mikael Kohler-Frost is found wandering. Thirteen years earlier, he went missing along with his younger sister. They were long thought to have been victims of Sweden's most notorious serial killer, Jurek Walter, now serving a life sentence in a maximum security psychiatric hospital. Now Mikael tells the police that his sister is still alive and being held by someone he knows only as the Sandman. Years ago, Detective Inspector Joona Linna made an excruciating personal sacrifice to ensure Jurek's capture. He is keenly aware of what this killer is capable of, and now he is certain that Jurek has an accomplice. He knows that any chance of rescuing Mikael's sister depends on getting Jurek to talk, and that the only agent capable of this is Inspector Saga Bauer, a twenty-seven-year-old prodigy. She will have to go under deep cover in the psychiatric ward where Jurek is imprisoned, and she will have to find a way to get to the psychopath before it's too late--and before he gets inside her head.
My Review:
Fast paced and wickedly delicious. A must read for any thriller lover!
The synopsis alone drew me in right away. Undercover in a psychiatric ward? Yes please! This book is just flat out fantastic. With multiple perspectives, the authors bring you right into the middle of this fiendish operation. Thirteen years and going strong, somehow Jurek still manages to terrorize his victims and their families. Uff, my beating heart and my soft spot for a truly villainous antagonist.
While the hardcover looks like a monster, do not let the size intimidate you. These are all 2-3 page chapters and it reads FAST. These types of chapters are always a hit for me.. and ingenious. Ok - just a couple more pages... a couple more... a couple more... next thing you know I'm an hour late to my friend's birthday dinner. Oops! 😈
This storyline just sinks its teeth right into you, growls and dares you to try and get away. Addicting and consuming, you will NOT want to put this down. My favorite character? Saga. This woman. BAD ASS. Prodigy or not, going undercover to go face to face with a known serial killer takes a lot of ... well it just takes a lot OF!
This is the fourth book in the Joona Linna series. If you're like me and like to read series books in order, do NOT let this deter you.... it reads like a standalone and you won't feel lost in any way.
I could go on and on about this book but what I'll do instead is just tell you to buy it, borrow it, pick it up. Set aside a few hours and strap yourself in (safety first!). This is a ride you're going to want to be on.
★★★★★
Lars Kepler:
Lars Kepler is
the pseudonym of critically acclaimed husband and wife team Alexandra Coelho
Ahndoril (b. 1966) and Alexander Ahndoril (b. 1967), authors of the
internationally bestselling Joona Linna and Saga Bauer series. With six
installments to date, the series has sold ten million copies in 40 languages.
The Ahndorils were both
established writers before they adopted the pen name Lars Kepler, and have each
published several acclaimed novels.
Alexander
and Alexandra married in 1994 and have three daughters together. They live in
central Stockholm.
ALEXANDRA COELHO
AHNDORIL
Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril was born in 1966, and grew up on the
south coast of Sweden. In the early 90s, Alexandra moved to Stockholm to pursue
a career in acting though she eventually became an author.
In 2003, she published her critically acclaimed debut novel Stjärneborg (Stjerneborg)
about the life of astronomer Tycho Brahe which received the Katapult Prize, Birgitta och
Katarina (Birgitta and Katarina, 2006) about the life of Saint
Birgitta of Sweden, and Mäster (2009), about the radical
socialist August Palm.
In addition to her work as an author, Alexandra has also been a literary
critic for two of Sweden’s largest newspapers, Göteborgs-Posten and Dagens
Nyheter.
ALEXANDER
AHNDORIL
Alexander
was born in 1967 and grew up twelve miles north of Stockholm. Alexander studied
philosophy, religion, and film at university. His first novel was picked up
when he was nineteen.
Before he
began writing as Lars Kepler, he had already penned twenty theatre plays, one
opera libretto, nine novels including Regissören (The
Director, 2006) a novel about Ingmar Bergman. Regissören was
nominated for several awards, including the prestigious Independent
Foreign Fiction Prize and has been translated into 11 languages.
Q&A
How did you decide to write together?
Alexandra: “For eight years we lived in 23 square
metres."
Alexander: “… And we wrote at home,”
Alexandra: “And then we lived in 46 square metres when
our first two daughters were born within a year of each other,”
Alexander: “… And we wrote at home,”
Alexandra: “We bought a double bed that could be folded
down from the wall in the living room,”
Alexander: “… And we wrote in the hall. We cook
together, we refurbished our home together, we take care of the children
together.”
Alexandra: “We were always the first to read each other’s
writings, but never until the manuscript was actually ready, there was no other
way.”
Alexander: “Fundamentally it’s very lonely being a writer.
You can’t let anyone else into what you are doing until it is finished,
otherwise you risk dispersing the magic.”
Alexandra: “But we just couldn’t accept that isolation of
writing.”
Why did you become Lars Kepler?
Alexandra: “In 2008 it so happened that we both finished our
writing projects at the same time. We decided instead to write something
together. We worked on a children’s book but quickly found that it did not
work, it was quite impossible for us to agree on anything.”
Alexander: “We just couldn’t get our styles into harmony.
Our individual literary voices were too defined. We decided to write a play
instead. I had written a great deal of drama, and Alexandra had been an actress
for a long period of time. It ought not be too difficult, they thought, but in
this they were much mistaken. The collaboration was a disaster. We argued about
every possible detail.”
Alexandra: “It’s odd when one respects someone’s writing
so much, and yet finds there is no way of collaborating.”
Alexander: “Not being the sort of people who give up
easily, we tried again, but give up our individual authorial voices. Together
we invented a third author, one who was neither Alexander nor Alexandra, but a
person in his own right. Lars Kepler was born.”
Why the name “Lars Kepler” ?
Alexandra: “The name Kepler
comes from the German scientist Johannes Kepler, who solved one of his time’s
greatest mysteries: it was his calculations of the planets’ orbits that paved
the way for Newton’s theses about gravity.
Lars is a homage to
the Swedish crime fiction author Stieg Larsson as he inspired us to start
writing crime fiction. He breathed new life into the Swedish crime writing
tradition in a way that sparked our own creativity.”
Lars Kepler
was provided with a life story of his own: he had once been a teacher at upper
secondary level, who had become a lonely, retiring person after a personal
tragedy he did not wish to talk about. Now he works nights at a homeless hostel
and writes in the daytime – crime novels.”
Alexander: “We have always loved thrillers, we grew up in
the 70’s with Sjöwall & Wahlöö’s ground-breaking police novels.”
Alexandra: “Suddenly we had broken down the wall of
loneliness experienced by almost all authors.”
Alexander: “It was so fantastic writing together, almost
as if we had fallen in love again.”
So the key to your creativity was Lars Kepler.
What happened after your identity was revealed?
Alexander: We were worried that they would not be able to
write together again. We believed that anonymity, protected by the name of Lars
Kepler, was a necessary safeguard of the collaboration.”
Alexandra: “We need not have worried. The obstacles had
already been torn down. As long as the writer was Lars Kepler, our creativity
kept flowing.”
Alexander: “We have come around to thinking that being
uncovered was actually good. Our biggest advantage is that we can meet their
readers.”
Alexandra: “We can travel about, meet journalists and
readers, and take part in book fairs and festivals.”
Many authors who write together split the work
into dialogue and prose, or write certain characters. How do you two work
together?
Alexandra: “We share everything, from the first idea to
the last line. When we finish a book there is not a single sentence in it that we
have written alone.”
Alexander: “And we do all our research together, we visit
prisons, we read forensic or post-mortem reports, and we talk to doctors and
police officers.”
Alexandra: “We act out fighting scenes together and we go
to the shooting range together. Authenticity means everything to us.”
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