#BlogTour ‘Whitesands’ by Johann Thorsson

About the book…

THE BREAKOUT SUPERNATURAL THRILLER FROM ICELANDIC WRITER JOHANN THORSSON

Detective John Dark’s daughter has been missing for two years. In his frantic and unfruitful search for her two years ago, John Dark overreached and was reprimanded and demoted.

Now suddenly back into the homicide department, Dark is put on a chilling case – a man who killed his wife in their locked house and then dressed the body up to resemble a deer, but claims to remember none of it. A few days later an impossibly similar case crops up connecting the suspects to a prep school and a thirty year old missing persons’ case.

Just as he is getting back into his old groove, a new lead in his daughter’s disappearance pops up and threatens to derail his career again.

Time is running out and John Dark needs to solve the case before more people are killed, and while there is still hope to find his daughter.

In the style of True Detective and Silence of the Lambs, WHITESANDS is a thrilling supernatural crime novel.

“Tense, breakneck storytelling. WHITESANDS is a dash of Thomas Harris swirled with supernatural elements that leave you speeding through the pages.” – Kristi DeMeester, author of ‘Everything That’s Underneath’ and ‘Beneath’

“Johann Thorsson’s fast-moving debut WHITESANDS, packs enough incident for a novel twice its size, until it’s impossible to turn the pages fast enough.” – John Langan, author of ‘Children Of The Fang And Other Genealogies’

“… certainly one of the best thrillers I have read this year.” – Kashif Hussain, The Best Thriller Books

Published by Head Shot Books in e-book and paperback formats, ‘Whitesands’ is the debut novel from Johann Thorsson, and my thanks go to Tracy Fenton of ‘Compulsive Readers’ for the blogtour invite and gifted e-book review copy!

I don’t really get left speechless , as anyone who knows me will attest, but in this case, Whitesands side swiped me and knocked me off my feet.

It takes classic noir tropes-the haunted detective, a bruised city skyline, a missing girl, an inexplicable murder-and gives them a fresh, modern twist in what I hope will be a long running series.

John Dark is a detective on a mission. His professional and personal worth is intertwined with the case of his missing daughter. Two years earlier, his teen daughter Emily, disappeared without a trace. The fact that he is a detective means he is being doubly accused of parental and police shortcomings in not finding her. Her disappearance is a weight which lays on him like a cloak, it almost appears before he does as he chases down yet another nebulous lead. A photo of Emily in a bar, via a friend of a friend has surfaced on Instagram and at the same time that he is shaking down the employees of the club, his boss decides now is exactly the time to bring him back to the homicide squad.

The wife of a lawyer with friends in high places has been murdered, but not just killed, arranged in an artful display which not be out of place in the TV show True Detective. And John needs to be inside the force in order to access the resources, and wave the badge around in order to bring Emily home.

Meanwhile, a multinational business is on the verge on implosion if the code that they need writing and releasing now is delayed any further. Boy wonder and genius programmer Daniel, is offered all the resources he needs to work from home, to crack this one problem that Gamma Tech is trying-and failing-to master. There is just one clause…he has to stop taking his anti-psychotics…

Aside from the moral and ethical quagmire that this presents, just how does this storyline begin to merge with John Dark’s narrative?

Oh just you wait and see…

This is perfect for fans of dark and twisty detective tales such as John Connelly’s Charlie Parker novels which manages to successfully mingle the supernatural with the procedural and come up with a whole new reading experience. The stark and sparse narration gives you a front row seat to the mystery and intrigue unlike anything else you will read this winter. Go grab a copy and enjoy!

About the author…