Sandman [Hardcover]

J. Robert Janes (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The premise of J. Robert Janes's mystery Sandman is both audacious and intriguing: the heroes of this dark novel set during World War II are Jean Louis St-Cyr, a French inspector with the Sûreté National, and Hermann Kohler, a German Gestapo agent. Set in Paris under the Vichy government, this novel's unlikely pair of heroes are doing their level best to solve a murder spree by a serial killer who has claimed his latest victim: an 11-year-old girl who might know him. Played out against the backdrop of war, betrayal, and fear, Sandman presents an unblinking view of cruelty and two strangely sympathetic officers of a corrupt government.

From Kirkus Reviews

Four schoolgirls have already been murdered when Jean-Louis St-Cyr and his Gestapo colleague Hermann Kohler are called to occupied Paris to investigate a fifth. But this time the crime scene reveals subtle and disturbing differences that make them wonder if this crime was really the Sandman's work after all. The girl who died in a birdcage in the Bois de Boulogne was stabbed by a knitting needle, but by a different-sized needle, and stabbed in a different place, than the first four. Although she's wearing the disordered clothing of munitions heiress N‚nette Vernet, the corpse is actually N‚nette's friend Andr‚e Noireau, orphaned when her parents went abroad on a visit to Coventry and never returned. As for N‚nette herself, she might as well be orphaned, since she's caught not only in the European war but in the more intimate battle between her bullying father and her scheming mother. Perhaps that's why she's disappeared, along with her companion, university student Liline Chambert. Or perhaps her disappearance is connected to the traces of SS involvement--from the presence of the Kommandant of Paris in the birdcage within minutes of the murder to the commerce at a nearby Germans-only brothel to the vile paintings of a sentimental Attack Leader that St-Cyr and Kohler keep tripping over no matter how hard they try to overlook them. As elliptical and understated as any of Louis and Hermann's cases (Stonekiller, p. 592, etc.), though its crescendo of ugly secrets marks it as one of their most searching. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press; 1st US edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569471061
• ISBN-13: 978-1569471067
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,648,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Read of the Disgusting German Occupation of France, February 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Sandman (Hardcover)

Dr. K. Feig: We are finally getting the Janes' series in the US. His French detective/"warm fuzzy" Gestapo agent team is a tour de force. Someone's review of his other book in English in this series elicited the following bit: "writing talents--in plot, character, dialogue and sheer command of language--are sadly lacking." Well - Okay, if you want to apply an American cultural analysis. But the setting is murky Vichy France during WWII under the nasty German occupation. Not only is the plot intriguing, the characters well drawn, the writing intelligent, the suspense sustained. But the real benefit is the impeccable historical accuracy, the description of the social and cultural forces, and the terrible realities of occupation. It is a great read - and one learns and understands - and shrinks in alarm not only from the story but the reality of the time and environment in which it occurs. Let's get the rest of the books translated!!!

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Concept 10, Plot 8, Characters 7, Writing 3, March 2, 1998

By 

David A. Appling "polkovnik" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sandman (Hardcover)

This book is superbly conceived, well plotted, and (unfortunately) not very well written. The constant use of the interjection "Ah" and punctuation with never-varying oaths put the reader off. Also, the writer should forswear forever the use of German; his attempts at it are truly atrocious. But with all that, I found the book a good read; the plot carries the reader along and the solution is satisfying. Recommended, with reservations. Dave Appling

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Atmosphere? Ahh, yes. Writing? Ahh, no., July 15, 2010

By 

thersites - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sandman (St-Cyr and Kohler) (Paperback)

The good news is, the author has clearly done a lot of study of Occupied Paris, and has crafted an interesting plot, with all the period flavor one could possibly ask for. Although sometimes it rang a bit false (the French citizenry is rather nonchalant about telling Germans that the war is going against them, for example, or talking about the Resistance), overall I found it an interesting and believable milieu.

The problem is the writing. There were two things that I found particularly annoying. The first is the authors habit of having characters say things they never would naturally say, just so that you the reader are informed for the sake of exposition. The best example of this, that actually made me laugh out loud (not the author's desired effect from this passage :)), comes when a detective, questioning somebody, apropos of nothing the person has said, says to them: "thinking my partner was a collaborator, [the resistance] set a bomb for him. his wife and sone came home form the arms of her German lover to an unexpected surprise...He's still on the Resistance's hit lists. Well, some of them, but he's no collabo. Now forget I said any of that..." 'NOW FORGET I SAID ANY OF THAT'?!!??

Second, the author too often tries to add a world-weary, wise air to things by adding "Ahh, yes" or "Ahh, no". See, here's how this works. You take a mundane sentence, like "I like pie". Is that what you put in your novel? Ahh, no. Instead, you put "I like pie. Ahh, yes". See, now it's great writing! I'm being a bit snarky, I admit, and the first few times this happened, it worked, but after a while it just drove me crazy.

Shall I end on such a negative note? Ahh, no. Instead, I would recommend Phillip Kerr's "Berlin Noir" trilogy to this, also an atmosphere-soaked set of police procedurals set before/during WWII in Germany, but IMHO much better written --- ahh, yes.