She has travelled through folktales, handled criminal networks, had close contact with satanic sisters and solved 200-year-old curses. Now she is 18 years old and has finished her military service as a marine ranger. Jannike Falthin is ready for her ...
She has travelled through folktales, handled criminal networks, had close contact with satanic sisters and solved 200-year-old curses. Now she is 18 years old and has finished her military service as a marine ranger. Jannike Falthin is ready for her last battle.
The airships that were visible in the sky already in The Whispering Child now hover above Grimeton, a closed down longwave emitter in Halland. When they search the radio station, Jannike, Magnus and Reuter are attacked by something that is definitely not human.
Jannike is sent to London and M10, the paranormal section of British M15. Here she is introduced to the young agent Geoffrey Wilmot who will be her partner. Geoffrey falls for Jannike, but she is not pleased: “He is a fucking vampire!” is the first thing she says.
But Geoffrey’s vampirism is hereditary, which means that yes, potential victims do become vampires and immortal, but also that Geoffrey himself will die after biting someone. He carries his fate with reluctant dignity.
Together, Jannike and Geoffrey track the airships to the secretive Lord Horlock; an industrial man who gained his fortune making watches and radio transmitters. Only the wedding suite is available at The Paragon Hotel where Horlock lives, and in order to stay there, you must show a marriage certificate. Unwillingly, Jannike agrees to marry Geoffrey.
In the hunt for Lord Horlock’s deadly henchman Muddy Boots, the now married couple finds a passage from The Paragon into another dimension of time. This parallel world is Lord Horlock’s empire, and in forgotten tunnel systems under World War I battle fields he wakes to life long since fallen soldiers. But in order for Lord Horlock to fully take over the world with his army of dead he must die himself.
“Sandén’s arresting hybrid genre mixes humor, horror, science fiction, social realism with a number of other expressions, in a tale that time and again offers dizzying leaps of joy and unexpected turns.”
Svenska Dagbladet
Age: 12-15 years