The couple that writes together … breeds a ‘Sandman’
Sometimes Swedish author Lars Kepler argues with herself, sometimes she argues with himself. But most of the time, he and she write without much trouble.
Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril are a spousal writing team whose previous work was often very different. He wrote plays and a libretto for an opera. She wrote historical fiction. They considered the idea of writing together, but it didn’t go well at first. Then they tried writing through the voice of another. That other became Lars Kepler, a nom de spouse whose given name is a tribute to the late best-selling author Stieg Larsson and whose family name is a tip to the German scientist Johannes Kepler.
“We were already writers, but we were totally different,” Alexandra says. “We thought it would be easy since we do everything we love together, to write together. But no. We had many arguments, failed attempts. … He could get grouchy.”
Alexander counters, “It’s not easy. To get harmony.”
But when the two, who will be at Murder By The Book on Tuesday, divorced themselves from their own voices and found a third voice, things clicked for Lars Kepler.
Together the Ahndorils created a Swedish detective, Joona Linna, starting with “Hypnotisören” (“The Hypnotist”) in 2009.
Kepler was briefly a mystery to mystery fans, though eventually the identity of the Ahndorils got out. But of greater weight than the mystery of their pen name were the stories they hatched around Linna.
They sold a few of the Linna novels in the States, but despite a Scandinavian run on thrillers in the U.S. market — including successes by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbø and Swedes Larsson and Henning Mankell — the Kepler novels didn’t click here.
But publisher Knopf saw some magic in “Sandmannen” (“The Sandman”), a novel published in Europe in 2012.
So they are bringing the novel to the U.S. while also offering up some of the previous novels by Kepler.
“The Sandman” should find footing for Kepler here. The book has a well-drawn hero in Linna and a Hannibal Lecter-like villain in Jurek Walter.
“We wanted to have a really, really interesting serial killer,” Alexandra says. “Not just a monster. We studied killers who communicated with the world, who had strategies. Who were intelligent. So we took our research and interlaced it with our deepest fears. That’s how Walter was born. And he was so scary, he gave me nightmares.”
Alexander adds, “You live with your characters during the writing process. It can be difficult. It’s not easy to say goodbye to them the end of a working day. But we have three daughters …”
“… So we’d be totally into the story and these characters and then have to make dinner and care for the children,” Alexandra says. “It was difficult at times.”
The couple sold millions of copies of their Linna books outside the States, but the series has been slower to take root here.
“The Sandman” should change that. Linna is a compelling character, as is Saga Bauer, the able cop he sends undercover into a psych ward with Walter to try to find out who the elderly, incarcerated killer may be working with to continue his series of crimes.
The stakes are high: “You’re like a sister to me, Saga, but it would be better if you died than if he got out,” Linna says.
The book’s construction is intriguing. The chapters blitz by at two to three pages each. But there are also deep-rooted ideas and themes, probed in the short blocks of text, with deep queries about life and death and freedom and confinement.
“We wanted it to be exciting and fast, like a book we’d want to read ourselves,” Alexandra says.
“But even when you write short pieces, you can find emotional power in that,” Alexander says. “Confinement is a theme for us when we started to write it. One’s world and the larger world. They’re very different.”
‘We thought it would be easy since we do everything we love together, to write together. But no. We had many arguments, failed attempts. … He could get grouchy.’ Alexandra CoelhoAhndoril