Sakari Learns To Walk Through Walls

English sample translation by Simon Pare available
Recommended for translation by New Books in German
No 1 on the list of best crime novels (FAS/ December 2017)
Shortlisted for Bad Schwartau Literature Award 2018 Via Communis

On the marketplace in the Finnish city of Turku, a young man steps into a fountain. He is naked and obviously confused. He has a knife on him. In hindsight, no one can really explain why one of the policemen who came rushing to the scene shot him dead – including, above all, the shooter himself: Petri Grönholm. He tries to find out more about the young man whose life he took, turning to his colleague Kimmo Joentaa for help. Kimmo visits the dead man’s parents – and stumbles on the traces of a catastrophe that, tragically and profoundly, has changed life not only for the young man from the fountain but also for two families. While Kimmo talks to the mother of the young man, the neighboring house suddenly goes up in flames and a child, little David, disappears without a trace. Kimmo Joentaa goes in search: of the missing child, of the cause of the big fire and, finally, of an answer to the question of what people can cling to in our world when their worst fears come true.

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France: Actes Sud

  • Publisher: Galiani-Berlin
  • Release: 09.11.2017
  • 240 pages
  • ISBN: 978-3-86971-018-1
Cover Download Sakari lernt, durch Wände zu gehen
Sakari lernt, durch Wände zu gehen
Susanne Schleyer

Jan Costin Wagner

Jan Costin Wagner was born in 1972 and lives in Frankfurt am Main, where he works as a writer and musician. His novels featuring the Finnish investigator Kimmo Joentaa were lauded by the press, received numerous awards (including German Crime Fiction Award and a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize) and have been translated into 14 languages.