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Killer Instinct Series

Found in Suspense & Thriller
A number one internationally best-selling series from Lars Kepler, the Killer Instinct books have been translated into forty languages and sold more than fifteen million copies worldwide.
 
The Killer Instinct novels are masterful thrillers with terrifying villains and heart-pounding suspense. Join Detectives Joona Linna and Saga Bauer as they chase down the worst offenders imaginable, and gain frightening insight into the minds of twisted criminals, men and women whose moral compass is distinctly off. 
The Sandman by Lars Kepler
The Mirror Man by Lars Kepler
The Spider by Lars Kepler

Killer Instinct Series : Titles in Order

Book 9
#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.
Book 8
#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.
 
Book 7
#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.
Book 6
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.
Book 5
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • The internationally bestselling Killer Instinct series returns with another terrifying thriller: Detective Joona Linna—recently back from compassionate leave—reunites with hypnotist Erik Maria Bark in a search for a seemingly unassailable sadistic killer.

“Kepler is a virtuoso at delivering scenes of suspense.” —The New York Times Book Review

The Swedish National Crime Unit receives a video of a young woman in her home, clearly unaware that she’s being watched. Soon after the tape is received, the woman’s body is found horrifically mutilated. With the arrival of the next, similar video, the police understand that the killer is toying with them, warning of a new victim, knowing there’s nothing they can do. Detective Margot Silverman is put in charge of the investigation, and soon asks Detective Joona Linna for help. Linna, in turn, recruits Erik Maria Bark, the hypnotist and expert in trauma, with whom Linna’s worked before. Bark is leery of forcing people to give up their secrets. But this time, Bark is the one hiding things.

Years before, he had put a man away for an eerily similar crime, and now he’s beginning to think that an innocent man may be behind bars—and a serial killer still on the loose…
Book 4
#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.
Book 3
#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.
Book 2
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Detectives Joona Linna and Saga Bauer must confront a relentless killer who’s always one step ahead in this installment of the Killer Instinct series from the #1 international bestselling author of The Hypnotist.

“Action-oriented, inventive, with over-the-top plots and larger-than-life heroes and criminals.” —Los Angeles Times Magazine

Police discover the lifeless body of a young woman on an abandoned yacht. The next day, a man is found hanging in his apartment. When Detectives Joona Linna and Saga Bauer uncover a surprising connection between the two deaths, they realize they are up against a brutal killer and a ruthless business tycoon who preys on his victims’ worst nightmares to achieve his sinister ends.
Book 1
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • The first of the Killer Instinct series featuring Detective Joona Linna: a triple murder, the one surviving witness—a boy with no memory of what happened—and the hypnotist hired to help uncover the truth.

“Full of surprises and more than enough twists to keep those pages turning well into the night.” —NPR

The police are desperate for information on the triple homicide. Detective Joona Linna enlists the help of hypnotist Erik Maria Bark. But when Bark unlocks the secrets in the boy’s memory, he triggers a terrifying chain of events that will put all their lives in jeopardy.

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