Sand
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
Set in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, this darkly sophisticated literary thriller by one of Germany's most celebrated writers is now available in the US for the first time.
North Africa, 1972. While the world is reeling from the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, a series of mysterious events is playing out in the Sahara. Four people are murdered in a hippie commune, a suitcase full of money disappears, and a pair of unenthusiastic detectives are assigned to investigate. In the midst of it all, a man with no memory tries to evade his armed pursuers. Who are they? What do they want from him? If he could just recall his own identity he might have a chance of working it out. . . .
This darkly sophisticated literary thriller, the last novel Wolfgang Herrndorf completed before his untimely death in 2013, is, in the words of Michael Maar, “the greatest, grisliest, funniest, and wisest novel of the past decade.” Certainly no reader will ever forget it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The murders of four European members of a hippie commune in a North African oasis drive this meandering thriller set in 1972 from German author Herrndorf (1965 2013). French detectives Polidorio and Canisades quickly arrest a young man who lived near the commune with his large family, but the lazy and incompetent detectives, relegated to this backwater in the remains of the French empire, obviously have the wrong person. Meanwhile, an amnesiac wanders out of the desert after being attacked by a group of men quarreling over a suitcase full of practically worthless East German money. He staggers into a gas station, where he meets Helen Gliese, a cosmetics saleswoman who offers to help him find his identity and gives him a temporary name, Carl. What Helen and Carl have to do with the murders isn't immediately clear. The characters' stories occasionally intertwine until they come together in an unsatisfying ending that only the most patient reader will persist in reaching. A big hit in Germany, this will have limited appeal to an American audience.
