Lars Kepler: 'A thriller is not a Ravensburger painting'

Their thriller series about detective Joona Linna has sold millions of copies worldwide. The crime novels by Swedish couple Ahndoril, better known as Lars Kepler, are also very popular in the Netherlands. Their readers are not the only ones who get nightmares from them, Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril tell us. 'After our first book, we had to move.'

On the small table, between the glasses of water, lies the fistful of the thriller Hunter. The sixth volume of the thriller series surrounding police commissioner Joona Linna is just off the press. Fans of Lars Kepler's books - some six hundred thousand have been sold in the Netherlands - can rejoice. As always, Swedish author couple Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril have devised a complex and blood-curdling plot full of social themes (in Hunter international terrorism and human smuggling, among others), while at the same time the bullets and blood splatter around your ears - not to mention other broken body parts.

9 million copies

The novels are violent and a touch lurid, with a socially critical edge. That combination has been a great success: the previous five volumes have now sold around nine million copies worldwide. 'I believe we are even the best-selling writers in Scandinavia,' Alexandra says thoughtfully, 'but that's rather embarrassing to talk about. Besides, we were already writing novels when we were penniless.'

Are you as addicted to Joona Linna as your readers?

She: 'Yes, we wouldn't be able to write if we weren't hooked. Were ever told we would only write eight? It has to be more. Joona is a very good and stubborn police officer. In each new book, we put him to the test, pit him against formidable opponents. Throwing him into the fray like this is fascinating. Why doesn't he give up? We don't exactly make it easy for him. Sometimes we really feel sorry for him.'

He: 'He is still a mystery to us too. That's the driving force for us: we want to get to know him better and better. I still know exactly what drives him, why, after all the sacrifices he has made, he still can't stop working. During the writing process, a lot is still unclear for ourselves too, because the writing has to remain exciting for us.'

Thriller writers almost always work with series, unlike writers of literary novels. Why does the thriller genre lend itself so well to this?

She: 'The advantage of a series is that in each book you can get to know a new aspect of a character, you can descend deeper and deeper into his character. Each book has a new story with new characters, but at the same time there is Joona and the people around him, who we then keep throwing into that plot. So, as a writer, you are in familiar territory, while at the same time you are floating on an ocean you have never sailed before. That's a great combination.'

Pleasant shape

He: 'Maybe it's not that crazy that crime works with series, but rather that ordinary fiction doesn't. Because it really is a very enjoyable form to work with. You can dive deep into the psyche of the characters, while maintaining a fast pace. Because you don't just have six hundred pages at your disposal, but six thousand.'

Does he surprise you?

He: 'Yes, still. We discuss the storyline in detail, and try to subject the characters to it. But they pay little attention to our diagrams on the wall. As a result, the story sometimes takes a different turn than we had imagined. Joona sometimes does strange things. What I love about him is that he still has a lot of empathy. He is no James Bond, saying all witty things the moment he shoots someone. Joona doesn't laugh when he kills someone.'

She: 'Writing is not a Ravensburger painting, where you just have to colour in each box of the plot with the right number of paint. The fun is precisely in the surprises. our books are very dark and violent, and Joona is our safe guide in the labyrinth full of horrific events. As long as we stay close to Joona, at some point we will get back to the light. Hopefully.'

 You would like to tell more than a violent story. Was there a concrete idea behind this book?

He: 'I don't want to say too much about the story, otherwise we will ruin it for the reader. Let me suffice to say that Hunter is about family ties, about what it is like to be a father, to be a son, a mother who could never be a mother. And about how someone gets damaged and never becomes whole again. It's a kind of Oedipus story.'

She: 'This kind of book also lends itself well to questioning what is happening in society. That's why we narrate in the present tense, and write cinematically. So that, like us while writing it, you feel like you're really experiencing it.'

Cruel entertainment

He: 'We don't want to romanticise violence, rape, all that kind of horrible stuff. That's why we don't try to describe such scenes more beautifully than they are, it has to be as authentic as possible. Otherwise we would turn cruelty into entertainment. We are not aiming for that. What we aim for is to wake up the reader. We do a lot of research for each book. We read autopsy reports, visit crime scenes and prisons, try out weapons, and talk to cops, doctors and ambulance drivers. When it comes to the violence, it has to be very realistic. Because beautiful or romantic violence, as you see in James Bond, does not exist.'

She: 'We also reenact the fight scenes. We rehearse them because it is very difficult to describe them so well that everything is right. And I'm always the bad guy!'

Now, if daily reality is so full of cruelty and violence, why do you even want to write about it?

She: 'Violence affects everyone's daily life. Fiction helps to understand a little more of that. Unlike what happens in the real world, our novels offer answers. You understand for what reason someone did something and what made them do it. And Joona Linna ends it.'

He: 'When you read the newspapers or watch TV, all you see is chaos. Reality never goes from chaos to order; you don't get answers, the perpetrators are not stopped. In thrillers, the world is taken from chaos to order. Fiction allows you to face the violence of human beings. And when you finish the book, you can put it away and just be safe in your own home.'

Taboo

She: 'By the way, there are topics I don't want to write about. Paedophilia, for example. I couldn't bring myself to do the research for that.'

How hard is it to put yourself in the psyche of a serial killer?

She: 'Especially the research is intense every time; that makes us very dejected. Even after all these years. What all serial killers have in common is that they grew up with a total lack of love. In the real world, serial killers never repent; there is only emptiness and cruelty. Hunter is the first book that we also wrote from the perspective of the killer, not just the victim. Because we try to do that with empathy, we ended up feeling sorry for him. Which does not mean we excuse him for his behaviour.'

He: 'But we can in a way understand how he came to this; there is a certain kind of logic in it, even if someone is psychotic. As a writer, you have to try to get into that. If you don't try to understand the killer, you can't bring him to life.'

She: 'But so I always have nightmares about the characters. In my dreams, they come after me. These days, I just take that as a sign that we are touching something real, and I know it will eventually stop. But when we Hypnosis writing our first thriller, we made the big mistake of using our own flat as a model for the house of one of the novel's characters. At one point, it got so exciting that I got out of bed every night to check if the door was locked. Once the book was finished, we had to move. I didn't feel safe there anymore. As if we had allowed evil spirits in there.'

The neighbours

He, laughing: 'We learnt from that. For this book, we used the neighbour's house.'

Which of you has the darkest mind?

At the same time: 'Lars Kepler!'

He: 'He is our novel voice, so to speak, and that is a different one than if we were writing alone. Lars Kepler is a novelist who is not equivalent to Alexandra or Alexander.'

Before you started writing crime novels, you wrote literary novels. Thrillers are sometimes considered inferior. What is your opinion on that?

She: 'If something is very popular, it is soon said that it has no quality - just think what people used to think of pop music.'

He: 'Before we started this, I had already published nine novels and more than 20 plays. I find writing thrillers really much more demanding. You have to do a lot more research, and the plots are much more complex. Of course, there are good and bad thrillers, but the same applies to other genres. Today, it is a luxury to sit down and read a book. If someone loves thrillers and is totally absorbed in reading them, what is the point of saying: you are reading bad books?'