You Can Have Three Seconds Free

Here's a way to start off the New Year right:  you can win one of five free copies of Three Seconds by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellström (being released in the U.S. tomorrow). The book received the 2009 Swedish Crime Novel of the Year award from the Swedish Crime Writers' Association, sold over 1.5 million copies in Sweden and spent 13 months on the bestseller list there.

Ali Karim selected it as one of January magazine's top crime fiction titles for 2010, adding, "Tense and gripping, with a chilling climax, Three Seconds boasts plenty of insider knowledge about the ways in which criminals and undercover agents work."

Roslund, an acclaimed investigative journalist, and Hellström, an ex-criminal who spent years working to rehabilitate criminals, combine inside knowledge of the brutal reality of criminal life with searing social criticism that puts them at the forefront of modern Scandinavian crime writing and has reviewers calling them the heirs-apparent to Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell. Carol Memmott of USA Today said that "Americans are finally catching on to what thriller fans around the world already know — that the Swedish team of Roslund & Hellstrom is writing explosive crime novels as good, if not better, than those of Stieg Larsson."

Three Seconds follows ex-con Piet Hoffman, the Swedish police force's most valuable informant, who has infiltrated the Polish mafia inside an infamous maximum-security prison. Success will mean freedom and the chance to start a new life with his beloved wife and two young sons; failure will mean certain death. His survival depends on Detective Inspector Ewert Grens, a brilliant, complex, neurotic man charged with investigating a drug-related killing involving Hoffman — but unaware of Hoffmann's real identity, Grens instead believes he's on the trail of a dangerous psychopath. To complicate matters further, the cops who helped Hoffman infiltrate the prison and promised to protect him now want him dead, and someone has told Hoffman's fellow prisoners he's a snitch.

If you'd like a chance to win one of the five copies of this book, send your name, postal address and e-mail address to [email protected] and type "Three Seconds Giveaway" (or something to that effect) in the subject line. But hurry — entries will be accepted only until midnight EST, Wednesday, January 5th, 2011, with the winners chosen via random drawing and posted the following day. Note:  unfortunately, this one is open to U.S. residents only.