Intense. Violent. … I can’t recall a novel with so much distress.

The Sandman (2012) has a really, really good BAD GUY.

“If Jurek Walter reminds you of Hannibal Lecter, with his ability to impel people to act against their own impulse, you’ll be forgiven… As with Jurek Walter’s powers of persuasion, I felt impelled by Lars Kepler to finish The Sandman. The characters got into my head and I couldn’t rest until the mystery was revealed.” – Jonathan Elderfield, Associated Press

As the novel opens, a young man — ill, malnourished and near death — is found on a snowy railroad bridge near Stockholm.

Mikael Kohler-Frost had been missing for 13 years and declared legally dead. Likewise his younger sister, Felicia.

The official police verdict was that the children of popular author Reidar Frost had accidentally drowned near their home.

… he and Felicia had been held captive in a cold, tomblike room he calls “the capsule” and that he managed to escape without ever having set eyes on his captor. The police must find Felicia before she dies or is killed, and so the chase is on. …

Oh, the horror! Why it’s hard to look away, even when a book is full of gore.

Lars Kepler is the pseudonym of husband and wife team Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril (born 1966) and Alexander Ahndoril (born 1967), the most popular novelists in Sweden.