The Player lives in St. Petersburg at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Bewitched and tormented by the demon of the game, he constantly raises the stakes. The marathon dance through the illegal gambling houses of the capital of the Russian Empire ends only on a fateful night, when life itself became the stake in the game. From this moment begins the hero’s sad and bizarre century-long odyssey... The author of the famous historical bestseller “Clairvoyant”, which conquered Europe, writer and bard Karl-Johann Wallgren will once again surprise and captivate the reader with his boundless imagination. His pessimism is not hopeless, his optimism ironic. Doctor Faustus of the 20th century faces completely different problems than his literary predecessor...

Karl-Johann Wallgren's novel “The Clairvoyant” successfully combines everything that has been loved in recent years European readers. Historical plot, mystical flair, love line, “Gothic” horrors and mysteries, the theme of ugliness and “outcast”... Those who like Süskind will certainly appreciate Wallgren. In Europe they appreciated him - there he has long been a bestseller. Andrey Miroshkin. “Book Review”

Scandinavian fantasies are conquering the world. Another “unusual person with superpowers”... With love that conquers everything, a moral choice between Good and Evil, actions leading to an even greater affirmation in the truth through repentance. With persecution, revenge, bloody showdowns and other attributes of cultural leisure. With apt social sketches and a compendium of modern scientific ideas about the nature of words and thoughts, the specifics of auditory perception. And plus the author’s inexhaustible optimism in regarding the future development of events according to the most remarkable scenario. A spell in word and deed. Food for the mind, soul and heart. Boris Brukh. “Moskovsky Komsomolets”

“I am compared to Suskind’s “Perfume”, perhaps because this is also a historical novel. And then, Süskind, like me, has a certain bizarre teratological perspective. I am, of course, flattered by this comparison, but it is still superficial, and I do not attach much importance to it. My novel is thicker and, I think, smarter.” K.-Y. Valgren. From an interview with Gazeta

The author succeeded in the horizontal scope of the narrative, when into the main plot outline, on which the sad story of the true and truly amazing love of Beauty and the Beast is embroidered, other stories are woven in with harsh threads. Church detectives like Umberto Eco. Hypertext mythology, like Milorad Pavic. Epistolary intrigues, like Choderlos de Laclos... But no. This incredibly popular and fashionable Swedish bard Valgren doesn’t fall into his hands so easily. He hides between the lines the traps that reading Sweden has fallen into with a circulation of more than 250 thousand copies; the European reading public is happy to fall into many times. Elena Kolesova. “Book Review”

...The author pulls from all the historical bestsellers of the end of the last and the century before with such shamelessness that you marvel at how this car, assembled from someone else’s spare parts, goes faster and faster, and even takes off in the middle... And most importantly, the idea becomes clear - not just an imitation, but a polemical response to “The Story of a Murderer” (the subtitle of “Perfume”). genius and there is villainy, says Suskind. Fuck you, says Valgren confidently, following Pushkin. Dmitry Bykov. "Ogonyok"