the nightmare

You are a husband and wife writing team. How do you go about plotting and writing the novel together? Do you ever argue over the plot?   We’ve tried to write together several times over the years, but each time the cooperation has almost immediately turned into huge arguments and minor catastrophes. As a result of this we came up with the idea of creating a brand new writer.   Since we started to write as Lars Kepler we haven’t had a single fight – it has actually given us a wonderful, creative rush. Many authors who work together write alternate chapters or divide the characters in the story between them. We don’t do that, we write everything together, like two people playing the piano with four hands. If we were to flick through The Hypnotist or our sequel The Nightmare we wouldn’t be able to find one single sentence that only one of us wrote. It’s all the work of Lars.   We always start with discussion. What is bothering us, what makes our hearts beat faster? Is our idea good enough? Our friends and families probably get sick of us sometimes. We’re talking about the plot, about ideas and characters, we talk all the time, when we cook, when we are shopping for dinner and when we pick up the kids from school. If we have a good idea in the middle of the night, we wake each other up. Read More

Hello there, So, it's officially got to that time of year again when we wake up for work and it's dark, and then we get home from work, and guess what...it's dark. So, as there will be many of you out there jetting off for some Autumn sun, or maybe you're going off for a nice traveling session (I've recently spoken to many a soon-to-be intrepid explorer - seems the travel bugs come around again), or even if, like me, you're going to power through the winter months with layers of clothes and mugs of hot chocolate, then fear not I've got a plan that means we can all journey round the world together. Follow this link to our world map of travel Killer Reads. Read the extracts and journey to cities you know and love,  or get lost in towns you've never even heard of. If you are off on your travels this autumn to any of these locations (or any other destinations from your favorite thrillers) then please feel free to send us images from locations mentioned in those thriller books and films to killerreads@harpercollins.co.uk or tag Killer Reads in the photo on facebook so the team can journey all over the world this Autumn as well... Read More

Stockholm, Sweden On a summer’s evening a young woman’s body is discovered aboard an abandoned boat. The likely cause of death is drowning, but her clothes are completely dry. A man is found hung in his apartment. His death looks like suicide, although there is nothing to climb… Read More