iBookKindlePrintReviews

Fatale

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Written by Jean-Patrick Manchette, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith — It is not fashionable anymore to be a leftist writer of crime fiction. Yet there have been a few crime writers whose works we now consider to be classics who had left-leaning political convictions. Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Dashiel Hammett,…
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iBookKindlePrintReviews

Camille by Pierre Lemaitre

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Translated by Frank Wynne — After taking the tropes of serial killers and kidnappings and turning them on their heads, in his latest book, Camille, bestselling French crime author Pierre Lemaitre takes on the heist story and subverts our expectations completely. This is our third encounter…
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iBookKindlePrintReviews

After the Crash

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Written by Michel Bussi, translated by Sam Taylor — In 1980 an airplane flying from Istanbul to Paris crashes in the Jura mountains on the Franco-Swiss border. All 168 people on board are killed. The sole, almost miraculous survivor is a three-month-old baby girl. It turns out…
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iBookKindlePrintReviews

Cognac Conspiracies

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Written by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen, translated by Sally Pane — The Winemaker Detective series from Le French Book continues here and this time we’re in the Cognac region. As the heirs to one of the oldest family-run Cognac estates, the Lavoisier, face a hostile…
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Book Club

The Lying Down Room

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“I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles”, goes the old song. Certainly, the August heat is a trial for Chief Inspector Serge Morel as he tries to solve a puzzling and brutal series of murders. Not only is Morel finding the temperature a…
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Book Club

The Mad and the Bad

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When a kidnapping goes wrong a young nanny, just released from an asylum, and her charge are pursued across the French countryside by bungling gangsters and a dyspeptic English hitman. This story is equal parts hardboiled thriller and capitalist satire. Winner of the French Grand…
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