The Sandman is the first novel by English writer Miles Gibson

Miles Gibson

Miles Gibson is a reclusive English novelist, poet and artist. He was born in a squatters camp at an abandoned World War II airbase - RAF Holmsley South in the New Forest and raised in Christchurch, Hampshire....

, originally published by Heinemann

Heinemann (book publisher)

Heinemann is a UK publishing house founded by William Heinemann in Covent Garden, London in 1890. On William Heinemann's death in 1920 a majority stake was purchased by U.S. publisher Doubleday. It was later acquired by commemorate Thomas Tilling in 1961...

 in 1984 and subsequently translated into several languages. A black comedy recording the life and times of a good-natured serial killer (William "Mackerel" Burton) who murders for the fun of it. More "Kind Hearts and Coronets

Kind Hearts and Coronets

Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British black comedy feature film. The plot is loosely based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman, with the screenplay written by Robert Hamer and John Dighton and the film directed by Hamer...

" than "Hannibal Lector" the novel nonetheless attracted criticism at the time for the way in which Gibson generated such sympathy from the reader for his anti-hero.