The Watcher in the Wall

by Owen Laukkanen

Overview

A heart-pounding new Stevens and Windermere thriller from the award-winning author of The Stolen Ones and The Professionals.
 
Kirk Stevens and Carla Windermere of the joint BCA-FBI violent crime task force have handled shocking cases before, but this one is different. Stevens’s daughter, Andrea, is distraught over a classmate’s suicide, but what the two investigators find is even more disturbing—an online suicide club of unhappy teenagers, presided over by an anonymous presence who seems to be spurring them on. Soon, it becomes apparent that the classmate wasn’t the first victim—and won’t be the last, either, unless they can hunt down this psychopath once and for all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780399174544
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Series:	Stevens and Windermere Series , #5
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	328,527
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Owen Laukkanen was born in Vancouver. After graduating from university in 2006, he answered an ad on Craigslist for a summer job at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas as a “poker tournament reporter” for a poker website. At the end of the summer, they offered him a full-time job. You wouldn’t think you could make a living at this, but you would be wrong. For the next three years he traveled around the world, reporting from the most luxurious casinos of Monaco and Macau and Australia to the sketchiest card rooms of California and Atlantic City. In 2009, having seen his fill, Laukkanen quit to concentrate on fiction. He also spends summers as a deckhand on the boats of his father and his uncle, both commercial fishermen. He is at work on more novels.
 
His previous Stevens and Windermere novels are The Professionals, Criminal Enterprise, Kill Fee, and The Stolen Ones. The Professionals was nominated for the Barry Award and International Thriller Writers Award for best first novel, as well as the Spinetingler Award for Best Novel: New Voice. Criminal Enterprise was nominated for the ITW Award for best novel. Both books, as well as Kill Fee, appeared on several best-of-the-year lists.

Read an Excerpt

It was time.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Watcher in the Wall"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Owen Laukkanen.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

Writing in his usual blunt style and at his customary breakneck pace…[Laukkanen] haunts the deep web chat rooms suicidal youngsters turn to for validation—and practical tips…This creepy book seems to have been carefully researched, which makes it all the more disturbing.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

01/18/2016
A teen’s suicide kick-starts Laukkanen’s subpar fifth novel featuring Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent Kirk Stevens and his FBI partner, Carla Windermere (after 2015’s The Stolen Ones). Stevens’s daughter, a high school senior, is distraught after a bullied classmate, Adrian Miller, hangs himself in his bedroom one day after school. When Stevens and Windermere learn that Adrian entered a suicide pact with someone with whom he was in contact online, they begin a desperate search to save the life of his partner. The pair later discover that the online contact persuaded Adrian to film his own death, encouraged others to kill themselves, and may have future victims lined up. The revelation of their adversary’s identity, a sadistic voyeur with the requisite troubled upbringing, sets up a tense cat and mouse game. Windermere, who takes on the one-dimensional villain with what amounts to a personal vendetta, engages in some unlikely heroics at the climax. Author tour. Agent: Stacia Decker, Donald Maass Literary Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Watcher in the Wall

“[Laukkanen is] a talented painter of individual scenes…. Fans of Tess Gerritsen and Linda Castillo should make a note of this author’s name.” — USA Today

“Known for his powerful and suspenseful stories Laukkanen continues this pattern with his latest book. …This chilling story is gut wrenching. A word of warning make sure you have the time to read it because you will not want to put it down.”   — The Military Press
 
“The author's experiences give this novel psychological depth and an urgency that drives the book and its readers to a breathless conclusion.” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
 
“[An] eerily timely and poignant book …  It’s a true page-turner up to the final act, which quickly escalates into a fiery exchange of gunfire and action-packed pursuit of the perp.”— BookPage

“Owen Laukkanen knows which crimes and misdemeanors are too monstrous to be ignored.” — New York Times Book Review
 
“A gut-wrenching tale filled with empathy for alienated teens. This may be the best yet in a first-rate series.” — Kirkus, starred review
 
“This is a guaranteed lost weekend for Laukkanen’s fans and for anyone those seeking a Lee Child–like adrenaline rush.” — Booklist

“Laukkanen’s best novel to date. I found this novel irresistible. If you haven’t already discovered Laukkanen’s Windermere-Stevens series, this is the book to start.” — The Globe and Mail

Praise for  The Stolen Ones

“From start to finish, The Stolen Ones is a fast-moving and satisfying thriller. Laukkanen is a first-class storyteller.” —Kirkus Reviews
 
“Laukkanen is gifted at creating relatable characters, and readers will happily tear through it. The combination of breakneck pacing, scarily plausible evils, and steadily rising stakes culminates in an explosive  finale.” —Booklist
 
“Savage, cathartic . . . Laukkanen deftly mixes sharp social criticism with bleak white-knuckle suspense.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“Fans of The Professionals will be delighted. Here it is not the criminals who are intriguing, but rather the victims who turn out to be far stronger and more remarkable than originally anticipated. Recommended for fans of well-written, thought-provoking thrillers.” —Library Journal
 
“Intense and fast-paced, with an intriguing storyline. An insightful look at morality and greed [in] an action-packed plot.” —Blackfive
 
“Here is my one-word review of The Stolen Ones: Whoa. Owen Laukkanen is rapidly becoming the king of the one-night reads. The Stolen Ones will make you a believer. You will also wonder why Laukkanen is not a household name in the constellation of thriller authors. Read this one (and his backlist) and spread the word. These books are amazing.”
—Bookreporter.com

From the Publisher

11/01/2015
First seen in the multi-award-nominated The Professionals, Kirk Stevens and Carla Windermere of the joint Bureau of Criminal Apprehension-Federal Bureau of Investigation violent crime task force return to probe the suicide of a classmate of Kirk's daughter. Unsettlingly, they discover an online suicide club of troubled teens pushed closer to the edge by an anonymous ringleader. What's more unsettling: the book is based on true events.

Library Journal

★ 2016-01-10
A fast-paced thriller in which Windermere and Stevens (The Stolen Ones, 2015, etc.) must stop the Internet predator who's persuading teens to commit suicide. FBI agent Carla Windermere partners again with Special Agent Kirk Stevens of Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Adrian Miller, a high school classmate of Stevens' daughter, commits suicide, and soon both agents are searching for possible connections with other suicides. Someone is putting the kids up to it, and readers soon see who. "It started with the hole in the wall" for 15-year-old Randall Gruber, who spied on his stepsister, Sarah, in their double-wide trailer and "resented that she was so happy." Stepdad Earl terrorized Randall, who found a way to secretly goad Sarah into committing suicide, which he watched with great pleasure through the hole. Meanwhile, the agents discover that someone is targeting alienated teenagers on the online Death Wish forum and grooming them for self-destruction. He tells them that he's fed up with life, too, and says they should kill themselves together. But first he has to watch them do it, via a webcam: "I need to watch you or I won't have the guts to do it myself." It's Gruber, of course, though the agents don't know it yet; after the kids commit suicide, he sells the videos. Windermere and Stevens set up a fake profile to lure the predator and rescue the teens. They're relentless, especially Windermere, who barely contains her fury. She even browbeats a judge into admitting the issue is criminal activity and not free speech. And when Gruber thinks he has the best of Windermere, she keeps coming at him—"The bitch just wouldn't take a hint." No indeed, and that's why her colleagues call her Supercop and why she's such a wonderful series character. Either she or the perp is going down, and it damned well won't be her. She's African-American, by the way, but that factors little into the series so far. A gut-wrenching tale filled with empathy for alienated teens. This may be the best yet in a first-rate series.

Kirkus Reviews