Sandman
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In the dead of winter, a serial killer targets the children of ParisIt is January 1943, and as Germany reels from the defeat at Stalingrad, Hermann Kohler learns that his sons were among the German casualties. He has no choice but to set grief aside and continue working, solving everyday cases in and around Paris. Today he and his partner, Jean-Louis St-Cyr, examine the corpse of a murdered girl. As St-Cyr examines the crime scene, Kohler is overwhelmed; after seeing countless corpses, he can no longer stand it. This slender schoolgirl is the fifth victim of the serial killer named Sandman. Like the others, she was stabbed to death with a knitting needle and left in plain sight—in this case, in a birdcage in the Bois de Boulogne. Kohler can do nothing for this girl or for his own sons, but for the sake of France’s children, he will send Sandman to the guillotine.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The harsh, brutal winter world of Nazi-occupied Paris in 1943 is the setting for this grim procedural featuring Hermann Kohler of the Gestapo and Louis St-Cyr, a chief inspector of the Surete. The German and the Frenchman form an unusual personal and professional partnership to fight "common" crime in a country where atrocities abound. A serial killer dubbed the "Sandman" has raped and killed four young girls. The fifth appears to be 11-year-old Nenette Vernet, orphaned heiress to an industrialist's fortune. But the body turns out to be that of her friend, and Nenette and her governess/companion are both missing. In an atmosphere reeking of menace and desperation, Kohler and St-Cyr search for the missing girls, for the Sandman and for the truth as they sift through tawdry affairs, back-street abortionists and whorehouses where even the used condoms are prized. The catalogue of suspects is nearly endless: a wounded SS officer who paints pictures of young girls; a pathetic nun and her sinful sister; a discredited priest; a clairvoyant and her loutish son. The humanity of Kohler and St.-Cyr, and their devotion to their task, transcends both the grimness of the crimes and the decadence of those thriving during the occupation. Harsh but addictive, this second in a series (which began with Stonekiller; reviewed in Forecasts, Feb. 24) is an acquired taste that lingers long after the last page is read.
