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by Lars Kepler
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.
"Starred Review. Kepler doesn't pull any punches, and his care in creating characters will make readers deeply invested in their fates." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. If any Scandinavian crime series is poised to top the characterization and gripping action of Stieg Larsson's Millennium series, it's this one. Kepler has crafted a phenomenal hero in Linna, who wields intuition, strategic genius, and refreshing vulnerability against a foe as compelling and calculating as Hannibal Lecter." - Booklist
"More dark psychological thriller than police procedural, this shiver-inducing read will have you turning pages until the cliff-hanger ending." - Library Journal
"The yarn isn't as spine-tingling as, say, Jo Nesbø's The Snowman or as action-packed as Stieg Larsson's original Millennium trilogy, but as Swedish mysteries go, it does the trick. Fans of Kepler's detective won't be disappointed." - Kirkus
"Hurtles along.... Full of nuanced detail which sets it far above the average thriller.... You'll be terrified." - Evening Standard (UK)
This information about The Sandman was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lars Kepler is the pseudonym of the critically acclaimed husband-and-wife team Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril. Their number-one internationally best-selling Joona Linna series has sold more than fourteen million copies in forty languages. The Ahndorils were both established writers before they adopted the pen name Lars Kepler and have each published several acclaimed novels. They live in Stockholm, Sweden.
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