Sand - Softcover

'So dazzling and original.. a masterpiece... culminating in one of the greatest twists I've read' -- Daily Telegraph

'Brilliant, anarchic, darkly comic... outrageous, clever... a bravura performance... the publishers have already referenced the Coen Brothers, and to that endorsement add Quentin Tarantino' -- Irish Times

'Herrndorf... writes with an arresting cinematic vividness, and there is more than a whiff of Coen brothers' mayhem about the plot' -- Sunday Times

'A careful subversion of the crime thriller genre... Sand is self-assured in its aim and delivery: an emphatic statement of intent' -- TLS

'Herrndorf's enjoyment as he plays with our expectations is almost palpable' -- Glasgow Herald

'Every element of his story is woven together masterfully, with grain upon grain of detail added to a landscape that never stops shifting underfoot. It's part Pynchon, part Beckett, a crime story told by Lewis Carroll in a particularly nihilistic mood' -- Spectator

'German literary thriller that wears its intellectual creed boldly. Surreal comedy hangs a hallucinogenic pall over the reality of post-colonial North Africa in 1972, creating a confusing atmosphere around the central plot strand: who really killed the hippies int he desert commune?' -- Sunday Times Crime Club

'A hit in Germany... part Coen Bros, part John Le Carré' -- Sunday Star

'Undoubted literary merit... sustains uncertainty until the final pages, both for the reader as well as for the protagonist' -- Crime Review

'[Wolfgang Herrndorf] wrote an earlier book, translated in English as Why We Took the Car, but Sand will be his last. It alone ought to assure him a place in twenty-first century literary history: it's bold, anarchic, blackly funny, and completely unafraid' -- Elle Thinks (blog)

'Herrndorf has crafted something special here... the enigmatic Sand is the literary equivalent of a cactus: beautifully detailed, hard to get a grip on but sure to survive amid desolation and stand out sharply on a flat, monotone landscape where others sink into the dust' --Hits the Fan (blog)

Somewhere in the North African desert, a man with no memory tries to evade his armed pursuers. Who are they? What do they want from him? If he could just recall his own identity he might have a chance of working it out. Elsewhere, four westerners are murdered in a hippy commune and a suitcase full of worthless currency goes missing. Enter a pair of very unenthusiastic detectives, a paranoid spy whose sanity has baked away in the sun, and a beautiful blonde American with a talent for being underestimated. Sand is a gripping thriller - part Pynchon, part Le Carre, part Coen brothers - an unsettling, caustically funny tale of pursuit and madness.