Wolfgang Herrndorf

Während in München Palästinenser des "Schwarzen September" das Olympische Dorf überfallen, geschehen in der Sahara mysteriöse Dinge. In einer Hippie-Kommune werden vier Menschen ermordet, ein Geldkoffer verschwindet, und ein unterbelichteter Kommissar versucht sich an der Aufklärung des Falles. Ein verwirrter Atomspion, eine platinblonde Amerikanerin, ein Mann ohne Gedächtnis - Nordafrika 1972.

Roman

Sand

Set in the aftermath 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, this darkly sophisticated literary thriller by one of Germany's most celebrated writers is now available in the US for the first time. North Africa, 1972. While the world is reeling from the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, a series of mysterious events is playing out in the Sahara. Four people are murdered in a hippie commune, a suitcase full of money disappears, and a pair of unenthusiastic detectives are assigned to investigate. In the midst of it all, 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. . . . This darkly sophisticated literary thriller, the last novel Wolfgang Herrndorf completed before his untimely death in 2013, is, in the words of Michael Maar, "the greatest, grisliest, funniest, and wisest novel of the past decade." Certainly no reader will ever forget it.

Gary Homewood

Clever and intricately plotted noir-ish thriller in pacey chapters with varied cryptic epigraphs, set in 70s Africa. None of the vivid detail is superfluous. Spys, amnesia, loss of identity and violence. A gripping read, occasionally nihilistic, strange, sometimes funny, with interesting complex characters. Like a unique, filmic, post-modernist systems novel without the pretence.

Get the NYRB edition, it has a great afterword essay.

Konrad Lischka

A sophisticated literary thriller set during the cold war - an ambitious and brilliantly crafted story of murder, memory loss and nuclear secrets... 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 Carré, part Coen brothers - an unsettling, caustically funny tale of pursuit and madness. Born in 1965, Wolfgang Herrndorf originally worked as a painter and illustrator before starting to write novels. He had his literary breakthrough in 2010 with Tschick, which has sold more than a million copies in Germany. By this point he was already suffering from an incurable brain tumour. He continued to write for the next few years, completing Sand, which won the 2012 Leipzig Book Fair prize. He also documented his experiences of fighting his illness on a blog, Arbeit and Struktur, which was later published in book form. In 2013 he took his own life.

Sand Roman

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