Sandman

By J. Robert Janes

In the dead of winter, a serial killer targets the children of Paris.

It 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784085872

J. Robert Janes

J. Robert Janes was born in Toronto. He holds degrees in mining and geology, and worked as an engineer, university professor, and textbook author before he began writing fiction. He began his career as a novelist by writing young adult books. In 1985 he began writing for adults, starting with the four-novel Richard Hagen series. He is best known for his St-Cyr and Kohler series, police procedurals set in Nazi-occupied France.

Reviews for Sandman

[fourbears_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I picked this one out because it takes place in occupied Paris in 1943 and the detectives are Jean-Louis St-Cyr a Paris detective and his partner, Hermann Kohler, veteran of WWI who’s disillusioned with the Nazis. They are hindered in their search for the Sandman (who has been killing young girls with a knitting needle and raping them) by the forces of the Occupier. Luckily, though, they are very good and the various authorities (The German Gestapo, The French Gestapo, the SS,) and always behind them. One of the best things about the book is the way the author makes you feel the weather—it’s January of what was a particularly cold winter in Europe. Most people had no heat, little food, and not enough layers of clothing to keep them warm. But all things considered this isn’t a great mystery. It’s not terribly hard to figure out “who done it” though the book goes through 6 or 7 suspects, all with unsavory stories. It’s a fast moving case—the action takes only a few days during which the detectives don’t get any rest and little food and a child is out there somewhere trying to avoid capture because she knows who the Sandman is. Still, though, the novel drags. Don’t see how it was one of the New York Times notable books (which is why I tired it). Though it may be that I didn't read it quickly enough.