Best Selling Books by Lars Kepler

Two sadistic murders by a killer who is playing games with the police prompt Swedish detective Joona Linna to seek assistance from trauma hypnotherapist Erik Maria Bark for a case with disturbing ties to a years-old conviction.

#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A nonstop roller coaster of suspense, taking us deep into the hearts and minds of perfectly realized characters. And, oh, what a villain! ... The definition of a one-sitting read!” —Jeffery Deaver, New York Times best-selling author of The Goodbye Man Sometimes the past won''t stay buried. All across Europe, the most ruthless criminals are suffering gruesome deaths. At first, it seems coincidental that their underworld affiliations are finally catching up to them. But when two of the victims are found to have disturbing connections to Detective Joona Linna, it becomes clear that there’s a single killer at work. Still, police are reluctant to launch an investigation. If a mysterious vigilante is making their jobs easier, why stand in his way? Joona, however, is convinced this is no would-be hero. These deaths serve a much darker purpose. Desperate for help, Joona turns to Saga Bauer. If his hunch is correct, she’s one of the few people who stands a chance at bringing this criminal mastermind down. But Saga is fighting her own demons—and the killer knows just how to use them to his advantage. He continues to strike with impunity, and no one, it seems, is safe. When the killer begins targeting those closest to Saga and Joona, it appears more and more likely that Joona has been right all along, and that tracking down the person responsible will force him to confront a ghost from his past ... the most terrifying villain he’s ever had to face.

Lars Kepler returns with a piercing, bestselling sequel to The Hypnotist After spellbinding audiences in The Hypnotist, Detective Inspector Joona Linna is back in The Nightmare, an internationally bestselling Swedish thriller published to critical acclaim in dozens of countries. As the Swedish newspaper Arbetarbladet put it, "The reader is ready to sell his own soul for the opportunity to read this book without interruption, in one sitting." On a summer night, police recover the body of a young woman from an abandoned pleasure boat drifting around the Stockholm archipelago. Her lungs are filled with brackish water, and the forensics team is sure that she drowned. Why, then, is the pleasure boat still afloat, and why are there no traces of water on her clothes or body? The next day, a man turns up dead in his state apartment in Stockholm, hanging from a lamp hook. All signs point to suicide, but the room has a high ceiling, and there''s not a single piece of furniture around—nothing to climb on. Joona Linna begins to piece together the two mysteries, but the logistics are a mere prelude to a dizzying and dangerous course of events. At its core, the most frightening aspect of The Nightmare isn''t its gruesome crimes—it''s the dark psychology of its characters, who show us how blind we are to our own motives.

#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • This installment in the Killer Instinct Series tells the chilling story of a manipulative serial killer and the two brilliant police agents who must beat him at his own game, Detectives Joona Linna and Saga Bauer. “With its tight, staccato chapters and cast of dangerous wraiths lurking everywhere, The Sandman is a nonstop fright.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times 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.

A Time Magazine Top 10 Fiction book for 2011 One of the Wall Street Journal''s Top 10 Mysteries of the Year 2011 Prepare for The Hypnotist to cast its spell In the frigid clime of Tumba, Sweden, a gruesome triple homicide attracts the interest of Detective Inspector Joona Linna, who demands to investigate the murders. The killer is still at large, and there''s only one surviving witness—the boy whose family was killed before his eyes. Whoever committed the crimes wanted this boy to die: he''s suffered more than one hundred knife wounds and lapsed into a state of shock. Desperate for information, Linna sees only one option: hypnotism. He enlists Dr. Erik Maria Bark to mesmerize the boy, hoping to discover the killer through his eyes. It''s the sort of work that Bark has sworn he would never do again—ethically dubious and psychically scarring. When he breaks his promise and hypnotizes the victim, a long and terrifying chain of events begins to unfurl. An international sensation, The Hypnotist is set to appear in thirty-seven countries, and it has landed at the top of bestseller lists wherever it''s been published—in France, Holland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark. Now it''s America''s turn. Combining the addictive power of the Stieg Larsson trilogy with the storytelling drive of The Silence of the Lambs, this adrenaline-drenched thriller is spellbinding from its very first page.

#1 INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER • Detective Joona Linna is on the trail of a kidnapper who targets teenage girls and makes their worst nightmares a reality. "Dark, disturbing, and chillingly relentless. Picture Hannibal Lecter sitting down to channel Stieg Larsson and then dial it way, way up!" —Brad Thor, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Black Ice Sixteen-year-old Jenny Lind is kidnapped in broad daylight on her way home from school and thrown into the back of a truck. She’s taken to a dilapidated house, where she and other girls face horrors far beyond their worst nightmares. Though they’re desperate to escape, their captor foils everyone of their attempts. Five years later, Jenny’s body is found hanging in a playground, strung up with a winch on a rainy night. As the police are scrambling to find a lead in the scant evidence, Detective Joona Linna recognizes an eerie connection between Jenny’s murder and a death declared a suicide years before. And when another teenage girl goes missing, it becomes clear to Joona that they’re dealing with a serial killer—and his murderous rampage may have just begun.

#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A terrifying new thriller in the the internationally bestselling Killer Instinct series: Detective Joona Linna finds himself on a collision course with a terrifying killer whose past is more troubling than anyone could imagine. “One of those rare books that is truly difficult to put down.” —New York Journal of Books A brutal killing spree at a home for wayward teens. One girl is dead, another is missing. Joona Linna scrambles to track her down before the death toll mounts.

‘One of the most exciting Swedish crime novels of recent years...’ Göteborgsposten From the bestselling author of The Hypnotist comes the second high-octane thriller featuring Detective Inspector Joona Linna

#1 INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER • A serial killer is spinning a sinister web and Detectives Joona Linna and Saga Bauer are caught dead center. This pulse-pounding descent into the chilling world of The Spider is another shocking thriller in the Killer Instinct series. Three years ago, Detective Saga Bauer received an ominous postcard describing a gun and nine white bullets—one of which was intended for her partner, Detective Joona Linna. The sender alleged that Saga was the only person who could save him. But as time passed, the threat faded. Until now. A sack with a decomposing body has been found hanging from a tree in the forest. A milky white bullet casing turns up at the scene. When the body count begins to rise, the police realize that the killer is sending riddles, offering them the chance to stop the murders before they happen. But the police always seem to arrive a moment too late. As they begin to close in, the case becomes more and more tangled: someone is spinning a fiendishly intricate web, pulling Joona ever closer to a trap he may not be able to escape. The Spider is shocking and exhilarating in a way only Lars Kepler could accomplish.

You thought you were alone. Think again. The groundbreaking fifth thriller in Lars Kepler’s bestselling series featuring Joona Linna. Perfect for fans of Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN CRIME NOVELS OF THE YEAR • Another shocking thriller in the Killer Instinct series: It’s up to Detectives Joona Linna and Saga Bauer to untangle one of the most complex cases of their career, and follow a killer’s trail of destruction back to one horrific night of violence. It begins with a nursery rhyme. Nineteen minutes later you die. Ten little rabbits, all dressed in white Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite. Kite string got broken, down they all fell, Instead of going to heaven, they all went to... A masked stranger stands in the shadows. He watches his victim through the window. He will kill him slowly—make him pay. Soon the Rabbit Hunter has claimed another three victims. This predator will stop at nothing to reap his ultimate revenge.

15.000.000 de lectores están enganchados a Lars Kepler y al infatigable detective Joona Linna. REGRESAR DE ENTRE LOS MUERTOS... Alguien está ejecutando a criminales buscados en toda Europa. Lo hace con ensañamiento, con una crueldad inusitada. Uno de ellos es un profanador de tumbas noruego; otro, un violador alemán. Es casi imposible trazar un nexo común, salvo que guardan cierta relación con el historial del detective Joona Linna. Él será el primero en entender que estas muertes no son simples ajustes de cuentas, sino que sirven a un propósito mucho más oscuro. ... SERÍA UN MILAGRO PARA MUCHOS… Con la ayuda de su compañera, la pertinaz y exigente Saga Bauer, Linna debe hacer frente a la persecución del único hombre al que no desearía buscar, un sádico asesino en serie al que dio por muerto hace años y que a punto estuvo de destrozar todo lo que daba sentido a su vida. ... PARA JOONA LINA SERÁ UNA PESADILLA… Mientras siguen apareciendo cadáveres que no son más que piezas de un macabro rompecabezas, ideado para hacer estallar todos los demonios interiores de los investigadores, el cerco se hace cada vez más estrecho, pero nadie sabe a ciencia cierta quién está cazando a quién. ... PORQUE JUREK WALTER HA VUELTO ENGLISH DESCRIPTION 15,000,000 readers are already hooked on Lars Kepler and the unrelenting detective Joona Linna. Someone is executing fugitive criminals across Europe, and is doing it viciously, with unusual cruelty. One of them is a Norwegian grave robber; another, a German rapist. It is almost impossible to draw a common link, except that they all have something to do with Detective Joona Linna''s background. He will be the first to understand that these deaths are not simple reckonings, but serve a much darker purpose. With the help of his partner, the stubborn and demanding Saga Bauer, Linna must face the pursuit of the only man he would not want to search for, a sadistic serial killer who he left for dead years ago and who almost destroyed everything that gave meaning to his life. While corpses continue to appear that are nothing more than pieces of a macabre puzzle, devised to ignite the investigators’ inner demons, their search is getting closer, but no one knows for sure who is hunting whom.

It begins with a nursery rhyme. Nineteen minutes later you die... The sixth gripping thriller in Lars Kepler’s bestselling series featuring Joona Linna. Perfect for fans of Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbo.

‘It may take you a while to sleep after you finish it’ Daily Express The most chilling and terrifying serial killer thriller of the year, from international bestseller Lars Kepler.

Playground – en annan sida av Lars Kepler. Under en insats i Kosovo blir löjtnant Jasmin Pascal-Anderson skjuten och hennes hjärta står stilla under fyrtio sekunder. När hon återvänder till livet kan hon inte sluta tala om att döden börjar med en våldsam hamnstad där de styrande håller på att förlora kontrollen över den organiserade brottsligheten. Jasmin behandlas för sin krigspsykos, lämnar det militära och försöker leva ett stillsamt liv när någonting fruktansvärt händer. Tillsammans med sin femårige son hamnar hon i en bilolycka. På sjukhuset upptäcker läkarna en blödning från sonens kranskärl. För att kunna operera honom måste de stanna hans hjärta. Ingen kan svara på om de många vittnesmålen från tillfälligt döda bara beror på att hjärnan reagerar panikartat på syrebristen som uppstår när hjärtat står stilla. Men Jasmin törs inte ta risken. Hon vet att hennes son inte kommer att klara sig tillbaka till livet på egen hand om hamnstaden finns på riktigt. Den andra sidan är en mycket farlig plats och farligast av allt är lekplatsen – playground.

Een geweldige nieuwe zaak voor Joona Linna Vijf jaar geleden verdween ze, nu wordt haar lichaam gevonden. Wie was de man die ze zag in het raam? Wie is Spiegelman? Vijf jaar na haar verdwijning wordt het levenloze lichaam gevonden van een jonge vrouw. De enige ooggetuige van de moord is een warrige man, die niet zeker weet wat hij gezien heeft. Joona Linna roept de hulp in van hypnotiseur Erik Maria Bark, zodat de man onder hypnose zijn herinneringen weer kan oproepen.

In het vroege ochtendgloren wordt op een verlaten plezierjacht in de Stockholmarchipel het lichaam van een jonge vrouw gevonden. Het water in haar longen wijst op een verdrinkingsdood, maar vreemd genoeg vertonen haar kleren geen enkel spoor van zeewater. De volgende dag stuit de politie in een Stockholms appartement op het lichaam van een man. Hij hangt aan een haak in het plafond, in een verder lege kamer. Inspecteur Joona Linna is ervan overtuigd dat de man zelfmoord heeft gepleegd. Hij krijgt gelijk, maar daarmee is de zaak niet gesloten. De twee doden vormen de opmaat tot een reeks duizelingwekkende en gevaarlijke gebeurtenissen die Joona Linna meesleuren in een nietsontziende jacht op de moordenaar.

Kepler-kuume yltyy! Lars Kepler yllättää. Viidennen Joona Linna -dekkarin tutkimuksissa on mukana Hypnotisoijan päähenkilö, Erik Maria Bark. Lue, miksi Kepler on ilmiö. Poliisille lähetetään linkki Youtube-videoon, jolla esiintyy salaa kuvattu nainen. Seuraavana päivänä nainen on kuollut. Tapausta ryhtyvät tutkimaan rikoskomisario Margot Silverman ja hypnotisoija Erik Maria Bark. Jäljet johtavat Rocky Kyrklundiin, joka istuu vankilassa murhasta. Rocky itse ei muista mitään, vain hänet hypnotisoinut Erik tietää, mitä todella tapahtui. Sitten saapuu seuraava video. Joona Linnan apua kaivataan kipeästi, mutta Joonahan on kuollut. Vai onko? Nimimerkki Lars Keplerin takana on ruotsalainen kirjailijapariskunta Alexander Ahndoril ja Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril. Suomalaistaustaisesta rikoskomisario Joona Linnasta kertova sarja on ollut valtaisa menestys kaikkialla maailmassa.

The No 1 Swedish thriller by the author of The Hypnotist and The Fire Witness During a cold winter night in Stockholm a young man is found walking alongside a railway bridge. The hospital declares that he is suffering from hypothermia and legionella. They also discover a death certificate stating that the man has been dead for over seven years. The man was a victim of the serial killer Jurek Walter, who was arrested by Detective Inspector Joona Linna. Jurek Walter was convicted to forensic psychiatric care, a sentence served in total isolation. But where has this man been during all these years? Due to an unexpected testimony the case is reopened. Someone needs to get under Jurek''s skin and fast.

De moord op de zus van een jonge vredesactiviste en de dood de dag erna van een inspecteur-generaal die over de Zweedse wapenexport ging, bezorgen commissaris Joona Linna van de rijksrecherche in Stockholm veel werk.