The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman (10 page)

Nella and her brother Robert live a difficult life with their mother and father in a small town on the west coast of Sweden. Robert is bullied at school, and Nella has to resort to debt and petty crime to pay off his tormentors.

When she turns to her friend Tommy for help, her suspicions are aroused by the mysterious comings and goings of his brothers at their dilapidated boat house. But when she uncovers the reason behind their enigmatic behaviour, her life is opened to the realities of a mindboggling secret.

The Merman is an exhilarating and beautiful book about sibling love and betrayal – and what happens when the mundane collides with the strange and wonderful.

Two authors. One idea. Who will be the first to write the best book in the world?

Titus Jensen is waiting for his big break. But he’s middle-aged, has a fondness for alcohol and never gets taken seriously.

Eddie X is cool. Eddie X is a hit with the ladies and loves being the centre of attention. A radical poet and regular on the festival circuit, he is looking for his next big project to gain more adoring fans.

One night, after a successful literary event at which Titus reads from
The Diseases of Swedish Monarchs
and Eddie X waxes lyrical to the thrashing tones of metal band The Tourettes, the unlikely pair get horribly drunk together and hatch a plan. There’s only one thing for a budding writer to do to get worldwide recognition: write the best book in the world – a book so amazing that it will end up on all the bestseller lists in every category imaginable, thriller, self-help, cookery, business, dieting… a book that combines everything in one!

But there is only room for one such amazing book and as the alcohol-induced haze clears Titus and Eddie X both realise they are not willing to share the limelight. Who will win the race to write the best book in the world, and to what unimaginable lengths will they go to get there first…?

Sitting quietly in his room in an old people’s home, Allan Karlsson is waiting for a party he doesn’t want to begin. His one-hundredth birthday party to be precise. The Mayor will be there. The press will be there. But, as it turns out, Allan will not…

Escaping (in his slippers) through his bedroom window, into the flowerbed, Allan makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, Allan’s earlier life is revealed. A life in which – remarkably – he played a key role behind the scenes in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.

José is hiding a terrifying secret. A seemingly charming doctor, behind his cool exterior lies a calculating, sadistic character.

On the run from his native Germany, José finds himself in South America where he plans to continue with his secret genetic experimentation. But his vision is put on hold when he meets Lilith in a small, run-down village. Although vivacious and beautifully blonde, she has a growth defect and, for José, represents all that he would like to exterminate from humankind. An anomaly amongst her perfect Aryan siblings, Lilith’s existence intrigues him, and when he discovers that her mother is pregnant again, potentially with twins, the temptation to meddle in their lives and test his medical theories is strong.

Dark times lie ahead for Lilith and with few places to turn to for comfort, she clings ever tighter to her mysterious doll Wakolda.

And so begins a dark relationship between the doctor and little girl, the kind of love that simply cannot end well – for José is concealing the fact that he is the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, infamous for performing experiments on humans at Auschwitz. And sooner or later his past is going to catch up with him.